Shopping Trip Stories

by Jacqueline Jules

While many students are reluctant to return to school after a too short summer break, most still love back-to-school shopping. Kids have fun choosing new backpacks, pencils, and notebooks.  In Shopping Trip Trouble,  seven-year-old Sofia Martinez goes school shopping with her two older sisters, Mamá, Tía Carmen, and her four cousins—Hector, Alonzo, Manuel, and baby Mariela. Everyone is excited to pick school supplies in their favorite colors. But when Sofia notices that four-year-old Manuel is missing, chaos ensues as the family races around the store searching to find him.

Read Shopping Trip Trouble out loud to your students and have fun discussing their own shopping trip adventures.

Suggested questions:

Were there too many choices of colors and sizes? Not enough? 

Did you have trouble choosing?

What are your favorite back-to-school items? Are there any you do not like?

Did you accidentally knock something over like Hector and Alonzo?

Did the family stay together? Or did a child wander off?

Have you ever heard an announcement over the loudspeaker calling for a lost child?

Is it more fun to go shopping in a large group? 

Or would you rather shop with one person?

What other elements of Shopping Trip Trouble mirrored your own shopping experience?

Use the discussion to help young writers remember and record details for their own writing. Afterwards, ask your students to do one or more of the following:

1.     Write a personal narrative of a family shopping trip.

2.     Create a fictional story in which a child was lost and found in a store.

3.     Write a poem about a specific school supply. (ie: pencil, notebook, backpack, ruler)

4.     Write a diary entry from the viewpoint of a school supply (ie: crayons, markers, notebook) waiting to be chosen by a shopping student. 

  www.jacquelinejules.com

School's First Day of School

by Laura Gehl

School’s First Day of School, written by Adam Rex and illustrated by Christian Robinson, turns the typical “first day of school” story on its head.  After a new school is built, makes friends with the janitor, and gets used to a peaceful existence, the school hears some scary, unwelcome news: children are coming! 

School’s First Day of School will be a fun writing prompt to use in the classroom.  After you read the book aloud to your students, here are some activities to try:

1. In this book, the main character is a school.  If you were to write a story with an inanimate object as the main character, what object would you choose?  Why?  When you are choosing your object, think about what characteristics your inanimate object has that might be useful in the plot of your story.  For example, in School’s First Day of School, the school is able to squirt a boy from a water fountain, be embarrassed by setting off the fire alarm, and be hurt by a pushpin. 

2. What other books can you think of where the main character is an inanimate object?  Make a list as a class.

3. The school gradually warms up to the children, just as the little girl with freckles warms up to the school, and the book ends on a happy note.  What if you were to write a sequel to School’s First Day of School?  What would happen?  What new problems would arise, and how would they be solved?    

School’s First Day of School is funny, surprising, and heart-warming.  It is a story of adapting to change, and of realizing that the things we never wanted may be exactly the things we need the most.

www.lauragehl.com

30 Day Creative Challenge

by Joan Waites

The new school year has officially started, and classrooms are buzzing again!

A fun way to get the creativity flowing after the summer break is to initiate a 30 day creative challenge for your students.

Using 5x7 index cards (or other small pieces of paper), pick a simple one word prompt for children to do a quick drawing or doodle. Emphasize that the drawings don’t have to be realistic; they can be funny, whimsical or anthropomorphized. On the back side of the paper, have students do a short writing exercise. For example, using the word “paintbrush,” have students draw a paintbrush and then on the back of the drawing either describe the object using the five senses, write a poem about the object, or turn the object  into a character for a story and list character traits. 

Do this every day for 30 days allowing about 10-15 minutes per day. At the end of the 30 days, have students look over their collection of challenges. Have them pick out their favorite drawings and creative writing. Ask students to expand these simple exercises into a short story or picture book. These 30 day challenges can be kept in an envelope and used throughout the year as inspiration for other artistic works or writing assignments.

Happy September!

www.joanwaites.com

SCRIBING FROM SUMMER'S SCRAPS

by Jane Harrington

It’s that time of year again: kids are sitting at desks, doing jumping jacks in the gym, and standing in lunch lines. The student body has returned! But what about the student mind? Is it still lingering on summer memories? Is it still off at soccer camp or traipsing the trails of Yellowstone National Park? Most likely. But don’t let the daydreaming drive you crazy. On that path creativity lies.

Scrapbooking about summer can be a great weekend assignment, or something students do together in class after bringing in personal collections of memorabilia. Ticket stubs from plays or museum visits, photographs from camp or a sleepover, feathers or cicada shells from a nature hike—these sorts of tidbits, glued onto pages of a journal, can inspire students to do some meaningful writing about those summer days that they’re not quite ready to leave behind. The length/genre of writing can be easily tailored to any grade level or standards.

Of course, this idea needn’t be limited to the classroom. It’s perfect for homeschooled writers, or for any families who want to savor the adventures and closeness that seem to too quickly get left at fall’s doorstep every year. The artistic side can be expanded, as well, by creating collages for the covers and decorating pages.

Tips: To make this a low-budget activity, find those super-cheap spiral notebooks that are always available in the fall. But don’t scrimp on the glue—you need a good quality craft glue to make journals that can become keepsakes.

www.janeharrington.com