The Slice of Life Challenge started without me. I explained to my children that I had writing friends. We read each others blogs. And that we were participating in a challenge during the month of March. Instead of writing once a week, we would write a "slice of life" everyday for the whole month.
"Would you like to participate in the Slice of Life challenge?" I explained that participation was optional. I also said that "slicers" would have lunch with me once a week during the challenge. Someone asked if we would run out of ideas for writing. I pulled out a Ralph Fletcher book that shared his ideas for finding ideas. "Who would like to do it?" Everyone.
To write every day you have to know how to look at a day. I reached for All in a Day by Cynthia Rylant as a mentor text for teaching us how to see. This week we've written everyday in Room 204. And my notebook and I have gotten to know each other again. Yesterday was Day 5. They've written everyday. Me too. But I haven't blogged once. The bell rang at the end of the day. And no one wanted to leave. We were not done sharing.
5 comments:
I love what you wrote. On Fridays we write in computer lab. It is a little different from our "Writers Workshop" M-Th. My first graders asked on Friday afternoon if we were going to write. When I said no, we already did in computer lab, they groaned. Don't you just love it when you have inspired a classroom full of authors????
The lunch writing time is ideal! I love that and will share it with my students, even though we will be a week behind. Thanks for sharing.
I love your idea too! I think I will throw out the challenge to my students on Monday and see how many will bite. Thank you for the texts you mentioned and for the inspiration!
I love lunch time writing! I used to do this with my second graders and they loved sitting in their favorite spots and scribbling away. My sixth graders would have a different reaction if I suggested giving up some socializing time,though. But..maybe it's worth a try.
It's interesting to see how many teachers have taken this Slice of Life into their classrooms. I always enjoy reading how it's going--so thanks!
Elizabeth
http://peninkpaper.blogspot.com/
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