Wine Down: I am thankful for...

Monday, November 22, 2010

I am thankful for...

Think back to when you were in school. Every November, teachers would make you write about the same exact thing year after year; what you are thankful for. It would just be terrible of me to deprive my students of this wonderful tradition, so thus was our warm-up question for today. Rather than have the my students write about this topic in a paragraph, I had them make a list on sticky notes. This way, I don't have to endure reading 65 crappy paragraphs, and the students get to play with sticky notes.

I put a piece of chart paper on the board with our topic written at the top. Each student was given 5 sticky notes. On each of their sticky notes, they had to write one thing that they were thankful for. I wrote "family" and "friends" next to the chart paper as the two things that they were not allowed to list on their sticky note. I told them that we would assume that everyone was thankful for their family and friends and that they had to come up with 5 other things to be thankful for. As the students finished their sticky notes, they added them to the chart paper.

Below is the compiled list of all the different things that my 6th grade students (ages 11-14) wrote on their sticky notes. Pictured below the list is the chart paper full of sticky notes from each class period.

I am thankful for...