3rd Grade Holiday Writing-Persuasion, Personification, and Transitions

This year in our 3rd grade class, we have had a large focus on writing. With our holiday break right around the corner, it was time to bring some festive flair to our writing for the week!

Monday: How to Decorate a Christmas Tree-Using Transition Words 

To start off, I did a read aloud of The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree. If you live anywhere in the Appalachian Mountain region, I highly suggest this book! By using the illustrations and some of the vocabulary words, we came up with a master list of items you might see on/around a Christmas tree. We then discussed how and when to use transition words. Getting to the Core of Writing has a list of printable transition cards that my students added to their notebooks, and it can used as a great reference for students in the future. We then used this free template in their notebooks to combine both the use of transition words, and the list of items you would use to decorate a tree. 

Tuesday: Elves Write Persuasively 

Tuesday focused on persuasive writing. To begin I created an anchor chart combining various elements that I found online. In their writing notebooks, students then had to write a letter to Santa convincing him that they would be good to hire as an elf. In our classroom we have a writing rules wall. During their writing students continually reference this, and it is growing as we learn about more writing elements! Students also had to include three transition words in their letter, building off of the skill learned Monday.

Wednesday: Holiday Traditions with Transitions

Our schedule was a bit strange on Wednesday, so we had a shortened writing class. Students wrote one paragraph explaining their own holiday traditions, and were told to use three transition words. Since they only needed a one paragraph response, the large focus was on improving and editing their work. Students used the writing rules wall again for reference. This prompt can be found for free here on my TPT. 

Thursday: Holiday Item Personification

Thursday began with a read aloud of A Wish to Be a Christmas Tree, followed by a discussion of our personification anchor chart. This one I also made from various ideas found online. We watched this video that gave further examples. In their writing notebooks students wrote a story from the perspective of a holiday object, and again used the writing wall rules and practiced using transition words. Their stories were fantastic! I had students writing as a nutcracker, stocking, dreidel, and even the train that goes at the base of a Christmas tree. 

Friday: Snowball Fight!! 

We have been discussing the writing process all year, and have done a similar activity with musical chair writing. I think this might be the new favorite! I bought this set off TPT from Presto Plans. It is meant for grades 5-10, but I was able to adapt it for my 3rd graders. Each student is given a picture prompt, and will write about it for ten minutes (I use the timer built into the Smart Notebook and display it on the document camera so students can see how much time remains.) After writing, they crumple the paper, and throw it to the front of the room like a snowball. They then retrieve a snowball, and continue the story from where the last person left off. The students had a blast with this, and we had a lot of laughs reading the stories afterwards! 

On the Side: Holiday Cookie Competition

This idea came from the great @fitspired_in_5th, and she was kind enough to send this activity for us to try. We worked on it throughout the week in addition to our other writing! Students are able to design a cookie, and create an ad to convince others to buy it. It fit perfectly with our persuasive writing for the week, and I was SO impressed with the designs my students came up with. Who knows, it looks like I might have some future marketing majors on my hands!

It was a fun-filled holiday themed writing week! From our class to yours-we wish you happy holidays!