Writing on Wednesday: Speech and Thought Bubbles

Hi everyone.

Yesterday one of the kinder teachers in my school was out and we couldn't find a sub.

Bad news right.

We had two options:

1: split the class up into two groups and have them join the other two rooms. 

2: cancell my ELL classes and have me be a kindergarten teacher for the day. 

I don't think I have to tell you but they chose to have me cover. 

It was hard. It's been years since I was a regular classroom teacher and well, I'll just say that my body is not used to those demands anymore. Lol

While in kinder I had the opportunity to teach writing whole group and have a full 45 minutes to do so! Normally I cram my writing into my hour block or integrate it into our reading lesson. It was so nice to have time to really delve into the lesson. 

What a fun lesson it was too!

We were learning about adding Voice to our writing by adding thought bubbles to our illustrations to show our thoughts and feelings. 

Oh man I am glad my thought bubble couldn't be seen yesterday. :P 

I always introduce this by reading a story the the children. What better way to show students how to be writers, than to show them the writing strategies in context is there? 

Normally I start out with one of the Pigeon books by Mo Willems.

They are fun and easy for the kids to read/ understand, so we can really concentrate on the strategy and not struggle with the content.

The Knuffle Bunny series, by Mo Willems, also has great examples speech bubbles.

The kids love this one because of the real world pictures. I really get to highlight speech bubbles in this one and because she is talking nonsense when she is a baby we get to create the thought bubbles with what we think she is really saying.

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale

Knuffle Bunny Too

Knuuffle Bunny Free

I am not done yet...

Peter Brown has two wonderful stories that are also chalked full of speech bubbles.

Children make terrible pets & YOU will be my friend!

Finally, I JUST found The Purple Kangaroo by Michael Ian Black.

Which looks to have an excellent use of thought bubbles.

However, yesterday I didn't use any of those. I knew that class had a few moody children so I pulled What are you so grumpy about?

Synchronicity was with me because as I was reading I noticed not only did it have speech bubbles, but also thought bubbles too!

So when we were done, and after we talked about feelings, I went back and asked the kids to identify the differences between the bubbles. Then I explained why they are different. I reminded them that speech bubbles add dialogue, what the character is saying, BUT that a thought bubble shows what the character is thinking or feeling.

Once that was over, I wrote a story for the class and had them add some thought bubbles to the pictures.

We did this on white boards so we could change the thoughts and not have to draw the pic over and over again.

Last, for independent writing I had them take out a story of theirs previously written and had them add thought bubbles of their own! I can't tell you how fabulous they did. I was such a proud teacher. Here are some shots of their work.

  

My Favorite.