Hot Air Balloon Project

Students have completed their Hot Air Balloons. This project allowed students to review the five steps in the Writing Process and the seven Traits of Writing. These are strategies the students have used as a writer in previous grades, and will continue to use. This project also gave us an opportunity to discuss classroom expectations in the writing environment and to familiarize the students with classroom setup.

8/19/16

Students began the week writing a BOY essay on water conservation. students had a few minutes to brainstorm and discuss why it is important to save water and ways to do so following a short video in class. This is a subject students know about and have experience with living in the desert. No other instruction was given.

The rest of the week, we focused on two learning goals: describing and using the five steps in the writing process, and identifying, using, and explaining how the seven traits of writing strengthen and enhance a written product. Students were given two charts to fill in and review these goals. For practice, students will be creating a Hot Air Balloon presentation, which is what the family pictures are for. Students could have brought in copies of pictures from a printer, copies of actual photos, or they could DRAW the pictures themselves.