Take a look at some of the fabulous work our 2nd and 3rd grade students are cooking up in their after school classes at Walt Disney Elementary in San Ramon!
From Aarushi C:
*This excerpt came from a free-write that began “They only come out at night.”
They only came out at night. It’s the shiny beautiful stars. I look at the stars and see an A+. I saw a big fat bear. It looked like a dragon—big tail, a nose, and big feet. It was blocking a castle. A princess was on the top tower next to the one thousand towers. It was in the middle. The princess was wearing a blue dress and a purple crown in her long blonde hair. It looked like Rapunzel’s hair, except that it didn’t glow like hers. There was a white horse. Her name was Princess. She also had a silver crown.
From Freyana S:
*This excerpt came from an activity where students observed and described everyday objects to an alien.
Hi, Alien! Do you know about books? You know, books help you learn, or they are really fun.
From Isabella C:
*This excerpt is from an activity called “From BLAH to TA-DAH” where students take a mundane sentence and rewrite it, or make a story out of it by adding descriptive details. Isabella's sentence was "The babysitter was angry."
My babysitter looked angry when my sister ate all the pizza. My sister was embarrassed. When we went to bed, my babysitter was in a bad mood so she took away my teddy bear. I was sad.
The next day I went to school and one of the bullies was mean to me. When I got home I was crying. My babysitter said, “What’s the matter?” I told her somebody was mean to me.
Finally, my big brother got home. He looked hot. He ran like 1,492 laps. Then we went to bed. My babysitter said, “Here’s your teddy bear back.”
I said, “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry I took it away from you.”
Then I went to bed. The next day we went to school. When we went home our babysitter made chocolate pudding and we tasted it. Then we went to bed. And she was gone the next day. My parents were back. I was so happy.
*The next two excerpts are from a free-write that began “There was a strange noise, and when I opened the door…”.
From Jake D:
There was a strange noise, and when I opened the door I saw a lot of ... zombies, Scream, cheetahs, mummies, dragons, skeletons, witches, vampires, crazy-looking people, and invisible people, too. They were all creepy...I ran into my house real fast.
From Kailey C:
There was a strange noise, and when I opened the door I saw water with alligators and crocodiles, and snakes.
From Kara L:
*This excerpt came from an activity where students took a simple sentence and turned it into a paragraph or story with lots of descriptive details.
Simple sentence: Mr. Apple was very mad.
Mr. Apple was mad because he had to move. When he walked into his new room, Mr Apple was really mad because his room was the worst. It had pink flowers that smelled like garbage, and a princess castle bed, and his room had lots of cracks in the walls...
From Keith H:
*This excerpt is from an activity called “What can you hear?” where the class sat outside and took notes on everything they could hear around them. Those notes were then used as details to include in a story or poem.
I heard a crow, a loud crow. But, I was saying, “Go away, crow!” It didn’t go away. I was wondering why the crow wasn’t scared of me.
From Maison E:
*This excerpt came from an activity to encourage detailed description. Students observed and then described everyday objects as if they were describing them to an alien.
We began by making lists of our observations.
Backpack
- You use it every day
- You put stuff for school in it
- It can be red, blue, green, orange, yellow, purple, or rainbow
- It can be a character
- It can have numbers on it
- You can color on it
Lunchbox
- You put food in it
- You eat from it
- You can pack in it at home
- You can buy it at a store
- You can throw it away
From Nathan M:
*This excerpt came from an activity where students wrote a poem by describing one memory or a collection of memories.
I
remember
I made a paper
plane.
And seeing a
bunch of late ducks flying
in the air. And having a
water gun fight in the summer. And having
a party in the jungle. We danced in the jungle.
And playing games. And playing with
Teddy and Toto. And playing in the sand! And
Playing in the snow and doing snowboarding!!!
From Olivia H:
*This excerpt is from an activity called the “I remember poem” where students chose one memory to write about, or make a poem out of lots of different memories. This was done on the first day of class as a way to start writing and get to know each other.
I Remember
I was in Six Flags when it was summer. I went on the best ride ever. I remember screaming so loud that two boys were looking at me like was crazy.
I remember looking at the biggest ride in Six Flags and wanting to go there.
I also remember my mom saying, “No, it is too big and dangerous because it goes upside down.” But it was OK because I got to see penguins. It was the best day ever.