Magical Product Swap No. 2!

My awesome friend Jessica from Mrs. Stanford's Class is hosting the 2nd Magical Product Swap!

This time around I got paired up with the lovely Sandy from Ms. Fiorini's Stadium!

Sandy is a 2nd grade blogger from Illinois.  She sells her creative lessons on TpT and Teacher's Notebook.   She was sweet enough to let me review her Persuasive Writing Unit!

My school is transitioning to Common Core and the new standards have a focus on opinion and argument writing.  I knew this unit would be helpful for teaching this standard:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.2.1 Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply reasons that support the opinion, use linking words (e.g.,because, and, also) to connect opinion and reasons, and provide a concluding statement or section.

Sandy's unit has 28 pages and includes detailed lesson plans for each day of instruction.  The unit has 8 mini-lessons with a center activity and a culminating activity.  The lessons are based on several mentor texts, so I would suggest rounding them up before getting started.  They should be available in your classroom library, school library, or other colleague's classroom libraries.

• Click, Clack Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin
• Earrings! by Judith Viorst
• I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff
• Hey, Little Ant by Phillip M. Hoose
• Can I Keep Him? by Steven Kellogg
• I Wanna New Room by Karen Kaufman Orloff
• My Brother Dan's Delicious by Steven L. Layne

Also included in the unit are graphic organizers, writing pages, and posters.  The lessons walk the kids through thinking about things they would want to change and why, finding facts and details, determining if the support if good or poor, and multiple opportunities to practice the skills learned.  There is even a rubric included for grading student papers for report cards or other data collection requirements.  

Graphic Organizers

Writing pages with dashed and non-dashed lines included.

Favorite Candy writing project

Posters

Here are the sheets for centers to use at the end of the unit.  Kids read the directions and write a mini argument paper.

My students just finished writing personal narratives (from Susan Moran) and they did a couple activities based on Click, Clack Moo (from Rachel Friedrich) when I was in Honolulu for a teacher conference.  I had to call in sick last Thursday, so I had the sub start with the first lesson in Sandy's Persuasive Writing Unit that is based on Click, Clack Moo.  The kids and the sub all loved it!  The sub loved that there were detailed directions and the kids loved stating their opinions!  In the lesson, the teacher reads the book (even though my kids had just heard it a week earlier, they didn't complain since it's so much fun!) then they talk about things that they would want to change in their lives (adding in come text-to-self connections!).  The kids fill out a graphic organizer and brainstorm what they would change and why or how they would change it. I am excited about diving more into this unit when I return to school on Tuesday.

If you head over to Sandy's TpT store, she is having a 20% off sale!  And so am I!  Head on over to Sandy's blog and see her review of my product, What To Do When You are Finished classroom visual.  

Click the picture below to go to my store and see the rest of the products I have for sale.

Sandy and I are also giving away one of each of our units.  Enter the Rafflecopter below for your chance to win!  The contest is over on October 6th and we'll announce the winners! GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED.