Toys that Teach

Toy: Play-Doh Teach: Buried Treasure

Andrea Knight 2012, TPT 

Lesson: This writing lesson is about creating ideas and making the realization that our lives are important enough to write about.  This lesson is one of the first lessons that first graders learn in Narrative Writing.  First Step: I showed the students a plain lump of Play-Doh and asked them to share what they've made with it before.  

Second Step: I asked them to turn and talk, all while I was fiddling with the Play-Doh.  Step Three: After they finished sharing, I showed them what I made.  I explained how I started with just something plain and that I wasn't sure what I would make but I like the way it turned out.  Step Four:  We discussed how writers do the same thing with paper and pencil.  We start with plain paper and we play with WORDS, and we uncover a TREASURE---their story!  

Writing treasured stories

Students creating ideas to write about