Snowflake Fall
Written by: Patricia MacLachlan
It is hard to believe, but two years ago, we lost the beautiful children from Sandyhook Elementary and this book was written as a tribute to them. It’s poetic beauty eloquently compares the unique features of snowflakes to children. I think it is a wonderful model for word choice, but can also work well to teach many other skills. (figurative language, visualizing, cause/effect relationships, analogy, and more).
Like Brave Irene which was highlighted yesterday, I use this unit to analyze the text (before, during, after) for vocabulary, figurative language, word choice, visualizing, making comparisons, and questioning. As we work through the text, we are also using our writing block to write a descriptive story about a snowy day. From this book, students learn word choice and the power of our words.
With the writing component of this set, the pages are set up to follow the writing process. To begin, students brainstorm key words related to winter topics. Then, students use a four square plan to organize their thoughts for their writing. There are writing pages for a rough draft and for the final revision. (copy twice) In addition to process writing, students also can use the quick write for post reading.
