Waiting for Someday

Do you ever tell yourself "someday" when thinking about something you'd love to do, or should do? 

 How many times have our students heard, “Someday” when they ask, “When”? Max, a little anthropomorphic beaver in the picture book Someday by Denise Brennan-Nelson, wants to spend some special times with different members of his family, but keeps hearing, “Someday”. He checks his calendar to sadly find no “Someday” anywhere. 

Here's a lesson that I loved creating, loved teaching, and loved even more when I saw the results of the student responses! This lesson is perfect for grades 3 through 6.  My friend Cindy and I, two newly retired elementary teachers, were so lucky to still have contact with kids every week, thanks to our wonderful teaching friends who invited us into their classrooms. We used this lesson with fourth graders. It met the standard for Writing: Text Types and Purposes (3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, 
and clear event sequences.) It met a much higher standard too - absolutely melted our hearts when the responses were shared!

The plan:
 1. Read and discuss the book Someday Is Not A Day of the Week. 

2. Talk about the special people in our lives and some of the special moments we've shared with them.  Encourage students to discuss in groups, adding lots of description and details about how that special time felt to each of them.

3. Use a graphic organizer for each student to brainstorm for the narrative writing piece. We compared that special time together to a gift that can be wrapped up and saved forever (the gift of time!). Here's the organizer we used, but your students can also draw  their own:

4. Using the graphic organizer as a guide, students write a narrative about that special time with that special person. The narrative can be between one and three paragraphs. It's meant to be a "snapshot" of a time, not a long writing piece. The most important part to stress here is the way the child felt during this time, demonstrating how much the experience meant to him/her. 

5. Students cut, decorate, and fold a little box to contain the memory writing piece. Here's our template, but actually any small cardboard box from home would work. Students can decorate the box or wrap with actual wrapping paper and ribbons. (When you see our results below, I think you'll want to use a card stock template and let students decorate with their own drawings!)

6. Students fold the writing piece small enough to fit in the box, holding the top closed with a sticker or very small piece of tape. 

7. If you decide to share responses in class, have some tissues ready! (for you!) 

Tissue Alert:

In two of the three fourth grade classes we visited, a child told us that the story was about a special time with Grandpa, who has since passed away, and the box containing the story was going to be a gift for Grandma! (Are you crying yet?) Melted my Grandma Heart!!! 

Cindy and I looked at each other, and our eyes filled with tears. We told each of those sweet grandchildren that we could imagine how that is going to be the best gift in the world for their grandmas. 

Some pictures from our lesson:

 

This lesson is a small part of a Bullyproof Rainbow unit all about

Gratitude. The amazing song "Gift in This Present" by the gifted Lessia Bonn is part of the unit. You might want to take a look at the unit if you loved this lesson!

                                     

Don't wait until "Someday" to stock up on some great resources from Rainbow City Learning on TPT! If you click on "Resources that Build Character and Bring Success", you will find all of the amazing Bullyproof Rainbow Resources that I worked on with Lessia Bonn of "I Am Bullyproof". 

The TPT Spring Sale will run this year on March 28 and 29. All of Rainbow City Learning will be on sale for 20% off - even already reduced bundles! Use the code FORYOU23 to save up to 25%! 

Wishing you spring happiness and sunshine ahead!

For more ideas to try this month, please check out the fabulous bloggers of Teacher Talk! Posts in this linkup are limited to Teacher Talk member bloggers only.

If you would also like to be a part of Teacher Talk, we are a group of teacher bloggers who share posts that are heavy on the ideas with just a little selling of our educational materials at TPT. For more information about joining The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative, go to https://bit.ly/3o7D1Dv.  Feel free to email me at retta.london@gmail.com if you have any questions. 

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