Lists, Letters, and Cards... Oh My!

I'm baaaack!  I was really bad during the holiday season, but things were just so hectic for a while and then, to be honest, I just needed a break from everything!  But I'm back and I've missed sharing!

This is my favorite time of year for writing.  It's so easy to make it not only fun but relevant to the the kids' lives.  December was full of lists, letters, and cards.  Usually I just do the wish list and Santa letter, but I have always felt like that just wasn't enough practice to get the letter writing format down, as well as learning to use voice in the letters and make them sound like conversation.  You know what I mean!  First graders have a hard time understanding that a letter is actually corresponding to someone, not telling a story.  You want to give the reader an opportunity (and reason) to respond.

Opportunity #1: Elf on the Shelf
This year, my classroom got a visit from a very special elf, which we named Cookie.  Cookie had her own email address, Cookietelf@gmail.com, and would email us letters about our behavior and answer any questions we had.  This is how we first started letter writing- writing letters to our little elf to find out more about her and to tell her about us.  The kids had a blast writing to her and were so excited when she would address their questions in her emails.

Opportunity #2:  Reindeer in Training
Next, we read Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and then wrote to Santa pretending we were reindeer.  Now, the kids knew they were writing to me, not the actual Santa, because we know Santa doesn't have time to read our pretend letters about being reindeer!  The kids had to write a persuasive letter to convince Santa why he/she would make the best reindeer to lead the way on Christmas Eve.  I loved reading these letters- they were so creative and so funny!  The kids took word choice very seriously on this one- they wanted their letters to stand out!

Opportunity #3- The Grinch
Of course we had to view my favorite Christmas tale, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, because reading the book myself just isn't the same!  This is a great story for word choice and voice as well.  I loved that we could work on reading goals (we were working on retelling and story elements) and prepare for writing at the same time!  We discussed the Grinch character and his motivation for his behavior- great character study!  After discussing the story, the kids were to pretend they were a Who in Who-ville and try to convince the Grinch not to steal Christmas.  More persuasive writing!  It was so sweet how some offered for the Grinch to come celebrate with them or told him they loved him.  Some also may have been a bit stern with him, but hey, it's Christmas!  No one should ruin Christmas!

Opportunity #4- Santa Claus
Cookie the Elf offered to drop the letters off to Santa upon her final return to the North Pole.  So here was the ultimate persuasive writing task- convince Santa that you have been good and sweetly ask him for what you want!  First, we cut out pictures of what we wanted and worked on labeling, finding the words in the ads that we needed and copying them correctly.  We don't want Santa to bring us the wrong stuff!  We made lists and hopefully checked them twice, then use the lists to help us write our letters.

After all of this writing, the kids were on a roll.  I put out list paper from the Dollar Spot at Target and they were off making to-do lists, grocery lists, more wish lists, lists of friends, etc.  I also put out donated Christmas and special occasion cards and the kids wrote letters to Cookie, their families, and even to me.  My cards were cute because they were "thank you for the thank you card" or "you're welcome for the gift" cards in response to the thank yous I had written for the thoughtful gifts!  I love seeing how inspired the kids are to write after this unit!  They were writing letters to their own elves at home, too, then bringing in the letters that the elves wrote back to share with their classmates.

I think that these letters brought out my kids' personalities (aka voice) and had some of the best vocabulary choices I've seen in their writing.  Now I have to find a way to connect this to other writing and we are set!  We aren't done with letters just yet, though... we have Inauguration Day on January 21st, so we'll have a chance to write letters to the President finally, as we didn't get a chance to do this after the election.  We will also work on thank you cards for gifts, too.