It's been a while but I am back! I am currently at home on maternity leave with my fresh 5 week old baby bean and my two year old wild child. I am so excited to get back into blogging because I had so many great things that happened in the beginning of the school year. However, I was in my third trimester and had no time (or energy, let's be honest) to share them with you!
If you are like me, you loathe preparing, copying, grading, and handing back morning work papers. I was on a mission this year to have paper-less morning work but I needed some ideas. I toyed with the idea of morning work tubs from The Brown Bag Teacher (you can find her amazing idea here) but I taught second grade ELA this year and was going to use all my manipulatives during daily five's word work stations. (blog post in the near future) I was browsing some Facebook teacher groups with people who were constantly asking the same question, "What do you do for morning work?"
One person responded with this amazing idea. I searched and searched for this teacher so I could give them credit for this wonderful morning work activity. If someday you stumble on this post, please let me know so I can A. Thank you over and over again and B. give credit where credit is due.
Her idea was this: Students have their own personal laminated twitter board. They write their own tweet using a dry erase marker. I ate it up and let me tell you... so did my scholars!! The first step in this process was to model, model, model! I wrote out a list of things they could write about on their twitter in the morning to get their noodles in motion.
Then I typically create my own tweet in front of them a few days in a row for an example of what they can write about. Students then come in and get to work on their tweet of the day. After 15-20 minutes, I have them read out their tweet to their peers. They love sharing out and listening to others!
Now you are free to use the twitter page however you want. Here are some ways you can put them together. You can have the kids draw a picture inside the box and write their name or come up with their own username. Then laminate the sheets so they can be re-usable. You could also put the sheets in page protectors! I took pictures of my students and glued them on the box before I laminated them. I also just used their first name and last initial for their username. Use your imagination when designing them. Feel free to use my twitter template for free!
After the students have a great concept of creating tweets you can introduce two more options they choose to include when they are making their tweets:
A. Hashtag (main idea): Have them come up with the main idea of their tweet and then hashtag it at the end. (For example: My mom made me a peanut butter jelly for lunch yesterday and it was so delicious. #deliciouslunch)
B. Tweeting a compliment to someone: You can teach them if they want to send a compliment tweet to someone they can include their username before the tweet starts. (For example: @MrsBooth you are such a great friend because you shared your candy with me)
I always choose the best tweets and put them up on our twitter board for everyone to see!
Show me YOUR STUDENTS best tweets on my IG @embellisheducation!
