Dear Santa ... I Can Explain

Well, we're officially winding down before Christmas holidays, but that doesn't mean we've put learning on the backburner.  Last week we had a lot of fun writing persuasive letters to Santa - from the point of view of a particular villain from a popular children's fairy tale, story, movie, etc.

Monday morning I posted this letter under the ELMO.  Students read it over and we discussed what it could mean.

On Tuesday we brainstormed a list of villains that students could choose to write from the point of view of.  They had a blast with this - and I was really impressed with their creativity.  They thought of things I totally wouldn't have, such as the "monster under the bed".  LOVE it!

On Wednesday we completed our pre-writing graphic organizer - focusing on three separate sections so all our letters would have three separate paragraphs when completed (can you tell we've been HARD at work on paragraph writing).  

The students wrote their first drafts on Thursday and published them on Friday.  I am so LOVING our class set of netbooks - what a difference it has made in being able to publish our work this year!  I taught the students to make their margins a little smaller so that their good copies would print perfectly on the stationery we had.  When students had finished their letters, I had them draw a quick picture of their villain to post alongside their letter.  The final bulletin board looks fantastic - and the students had a blast writing the letters.  There were a lot of giggles when students were writing their letters.  The adorable elves on this bulletin board are from Melonheadz Illustrating - you can see them HERE.

Today we read through half of the letters and the students voted on whether or not Santa should accept their explanation and take them off the naughty list.  (And it was a perfect way to tie in data management as we made tally charts for the votes and graphed our results).  The rest of the students will read their letters tomorrow.

We're also using these letters for our Christmas Concert / Pageant this Thursday - students voted on 5 letters to share.  We'll start off singing "You Better Watch Out", then Santa will come out in costume and explain to the audience that he has heard some characters wish to plead their innocence to him.  When the students have finished their letters, we'll finish off with a few verses of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" - short and sweet - perfect!!!

If you're interested, I posted this activity at my TPT store.  It might be too late for some of you lucky ones already on break, but it just might be the perfect activity for those of you still looking for some fun ways to keep the students learning this week.  Click on the picture to the right to preview this activity.

Happy Monday!  I have never been so happy to see a Monday morning before - I couldn't wait to get to school to spend time with my kiddos this morning.  For those of you back at school, I sincerely hope your day was filled with peace and love.

Jen