Hurricane Stories

After missing seven school days due to Hurricane Isaac, we returned with much to talk about.  Of course we seized this opportunity to share the many details each student held in their heads, by writing a hurricane essay. 

First I showed a short video clip of part of my own hurricane experience as seen from a second story window.  Then we sat in a circle and everyone shared at least three details about where they went for the storm, how they survived it, and what might have happened to their home.

We then returned to our seats and brainstormed our ideas onto a circle map (from Thinking Maps).  We also created a word bank so they could correctly spell all of the key words they would use in their stories.  Next, as a class, we created three questions that students were to choose one of them to use as their topic sentence. 

Now students inserted their three details into a flee map (a combination of a flow map and tree map specifically used for writing).  On the flee map students paraphrased the main idea and details they were going to use.  When they took it off the map, they would use complete sentences.
For their conclusion, students answered their question from the opening adding a new detail to it.
On the second day, we wrote our stories and painted an illustration to go with it from watercolors.  I then put each story and illustration in a sheet protector to create our second class book. 
This was an experience we have shared together that we will never forget.  But if we do start to forget, we have the book to remind us!