Classmates Magazine from Little Red Schoolhouse

Today I am testing out a new product for you.

This project involves creating a magazine for an "All About Me" unit for the start of the year.

This project is called Classmates and it's from Little Red's Schoolhouse.

 

 

Here's how we did it in my room. 

First I showed the kids a few real magazines.  We went over what you see on the magazine.  Like the title of the magazine and the sidebar with all the little teasers about what you will find inside the magazine.  Then I explained how they were each going to make their own magazine about themselves.

 

 

Because I have a Grade 1 /2 split class I needed to make sure that both grades were able to complete this magazine at their own ability level, and produce something that all the children could read.  I'm planning to put these all in the reading nook of my classroom so that the children can read each other's magazines. 

          

 

 

First we made the cover.  I asked the children to colour their picture the way they look.  Many of them even copied what they were wearing that day.  Of course little Peter (above) didn't quite get the concept. I asked him if he had purple hair, and he told me that he "really wants" purple hair.  It's hard to argue with that!

 

Below are some photos of the kids working on their covers.

 

When they were done we glued them on to 12 X 18 black construction paper and laminated them to make a real magazine type cover.

 

 

I love this little unit.  It's really cute.  Below are a few examples of the pages inside. 

I told the kids that if they were going to colour over their writing they needed to use yellow, but some of them used other colours, so it's difficult to see what they wrote.

 

 

Here are some examples of the Grade Two work.

 

 

 

 

And the Grade One's.

I really felt that I wanted to make sure the Grade One's were not intimidated by the work of the Grade Two's so I helped them write if they were having difficulty.  I call this method

"Erase and Trace"

the idea being that I write over their misspelled words, they ERASE their pencil marks, and TRACE what I have written in pen.

 

 

This child likes to play Basketball at Recess.

 

 

Here's another example of a page from the Magazine.

Again, some kids didn't follow instructions about colouring over their writing.

There are examples from Grade One on the right and Grade Two on the left.

 

 

Anyway, I really, really, really enjoyed doing this mini-unit with my class.  I'm sure the kids will love reading each other's magazines when they are in the Reading Corner. 

 

Check out Little Red's Treehouse for more cool lessons.

 

I have just finished using their Terry Fox lessons and I'll post that up soon.