Nouns and A Seasonal Pattern Poem for Winter

We finally finished up our unit on nouns. In third grade students need to be able to identify words that name people, places and things. They also need to be able to classify nouns as either common or proper  with the hope that they will then use them correctly as writers.

 

We recently played a Scoot game that allowed students to have discussions with a partner as they attempted to  answer various questions about this part of speech. I love eavesdropping into these conversations. As a teacher you can learn so much about what your students know and don't know by hearing them think aloud as they justify their answers with each other. Visiting partners during a Scoot activity  allows me to seize a great teachable moment to either clarify or confirm student thinking.

 

 I made sure I gave them a variety of different levels of questions .

 Immediately after playing, we go over the answers and they total for a score.

 

 

Later in the week, I had my students help create a reference poster to hang on our wall.  I love when students help in the creation of our charts.  I think they use  them more when they are kid made.

Here students are coming up with word and picture cards to show the difference between a common and proper noun. 

 

 I will now hold them accountable for using that capital letter whenever they write a  proper noun!

When they make errors I will simply direct them to THEIR chart in order to correct them.

Hanging  resources like these around the room allows students to become more independent and self-reliant.   

I've added this file to my TPT store.  It includes the SCOOT game and other printables that I use when teaching this part of speech.

 

You can check it out here:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nouns-Activities-for-Teaching-and-Review

 

After a few lessons on what a noun is, I like to find a way to focus on this part of speech as we write. Here is a pattern poem that I have used with great success for many years.

We recently wrote this seasonal free verse poem about fall but any season would work wonderfully.

It begins with students brainstorming nouns that are related to a season. My students did Fall and came up with words like: barns, pumpkins, farmers, etc.  They then describe each noun with two adjectives and record these on the web.  Here is the prewriting sheet we use to gather our words:

 

 

After we have lots of words, we can use them to create a poem based on this pattern:

 

Here is a finished example of one my students created:

 

I gave them an opportunity to create a bit of artwork to accompany the writing.  We made these fun fall owls.

 

Then we displayed them to share with others. 

 

I think this type of free verse poem would be great to write during this time of year. Students could generate all kinds of noun lists connected to winter or Christmas or Holiday time.

 

I've bundled the winter and fall versions of these templates in a file.  

 

Interested in creating these with your young writers?

I am posting this FREE on TPT.

 

You can download here: 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Seasonal-Free-Verse-Pattern-Poem-Parts-of-Speech

 

Have fun writing with your kids!!