Children find meaning in, in the same way that adults only want to write about something they enjoy. And what do Kinder students love to do? Play! Therefore, teaching kids writing through play seemed like a natural fit when I wanted to teach them “How-To” writing. Here is the 2 Day Outline:

Day 1, PLAY: Before I began this lesson, I arranged different toys around the classroom for my students to use during a play session including dominos, blocks, tubes and a marble run. Since this lesson was in connection to these Kinder student’s unit on Force and Motion, I made sure all these toys could somehow be used to demonstrate this idea.

I started this lesson with the whole class, reviewing words and ideas that the students already knew about Force and Motion. The kids were great, talking about push and pull and friction and how these work with objects. Next, I broke the students into small groups and assigned each group a toy to play with. I told the kids that their group’s job was to build something that demonstrated what they knew about Force and Motion. I told them I wanted them to consider what the beginning of their project was going to look like, what the middle would look like and how they would know they were done with their creation. Below is a sequence of what some of their play looked like.

During their play time, I ran around like a crazy teacher taking as many pictures as possible of each of the 4 groups to use during the writing activity on day 2.

Day 2, Sequence & Write: For day 2, I made laminated sequence cards for each group including one picture from the beginning, one picture from the middle, and one picture from the end of their play. Each group’s job was to put these cards in order in how they believed the steps in how they made their structure went. I went around to each group and asked the kids questions in connection to their sequencing- “why did you put this card first?” “Can you tell me using the cards how I can build the tower you made?”

Once I had checked in with a group successfully, I gave each student in that group a folded piece of paper as a book. The kids turned this folded sheet into their own “How To” book. They completed a page 1 for the beginning, a page 2 for the middle and a page 3 for the end of their play project. Each page had a picture and writing in the form of words or complete sentences depending on the student’s literacy level. Once done, I had the kids make a title page, getting inspiration by looking at a few picture books we had around the classroom.