In the primary classes at my school last week, in honor of Mother’s Day, we wrote about “Mom” (“Mother”, “Mama”, “Mummy”, “Mum”, “Ma”, “Mama”) I read “My Mum” by Anthony Browne as an anchor book to stimulate ideas about our moms. It is a lovely “walking story” and also an excellent model for using similes in your descriptions. We brainstormed things that moms do, filling an entire chart paper! Beyond the “cooks food”, “goes to superstore”, “cleaning”, “does the laundry”, “drives me to soccer”, “washes everything”, “working”, we also wrote: “tucks me in”, “helps me with reading”, “plays cards with me”, “buys me toys”, “hugs me”. Using the “four corner picture planner” – I modeled 4 big ideas we could focus on in our writing: 1) what my mom looks like 2) What my mom is good at. 3) things I like to do with my mom 4) why my mom is special to me. I drew “quick pics” (quick pictures”) in each box and included a few key words. The students then spent time creating their own planner about their moms.
The next day, I talked to the students about how to use their plan to write their walking story about their mom. We reviewed “similes” and I encouraged them to include at least 2 similes in their descriptions. I showed the students how to fold their picture planner so that they were only looking at one picture at a time. They could then write 3-4 sentences (including interesting details and triple scoop words!) about the picture. Once they were finished writing about one picture, they re-folded their paper so that a new picture was showing.
The writing was amazing! I know that there were many moms on mother’s day who would have been touched by the beautiful words that were written about them. I can’t wait to try this again for Father’s day!