Writer's Alive! ~ The New Me!

Over the past few weeks we have been working hard at developing our writing skills.  We have listened to Kate Messner, the author of our Global Read Aloud book, Marty McGuire, talk about how she makes writing come alive for her readers.  We also had a Skype date with Howard Binkow earlier in the year and had many questions for him about his writing.  Last week we learned a new writing strategy to try in our own writing!  We read the book, Quick as a Cricket written by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Don Wood.

This book had wonderful illustrations and used a writing technique called similes to help the reader "see" what the writer was trying to say.  A simile compares two things that are not really alike using the words like or as.  After reading the book we came up many examples of similes.  Some of these were:  hot as lava, slow as a snail, golden like the sun.  We had lots of ideas and were eager to record our ideas on paper.

Our homework for the weekend was to think of five adjectives that describe ourselves.  On Monday, we watched a a video called My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OZzbQk4SwYI&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DOZzbQk4SwYI

 It was very funny and gave us a good idea of how similes can be used to create a picture in the reader's mind.  We used the idea from the video and created a self portrait.  We had to think or something that could represent the adjectives we had chosen. Below are some samples of our portraits. 

I'm as cute as a princess
I'm as kind as an angel
I'm as quiet as clouds
I'm as black as night
That's ME! Ellie

I'm as strong as a tree
I am as pretty as a princess
I am as smart as a book
I am as happy as a ray of sun
I am as silly as a clown
That's ME!  Jessica.

 I am as brave as a king, I am as silly as a clown.  I am as kind as a bunny.  I am as strong as a weight lifter.  I am as funny as a monkey.  That's ME!  Kenji.

I'm as mathematical as a number
I'm as fast as a peregrine falcon
I'm as short as a stump
I'm as funny as a clown
I'm as smart as a book
That's ME! Nik

I'm as smart as a calculator
I'm as brave as a knight
I'm as fast as a rhino
I'm as active as a monkey
I'm as funny as a clown
That's ME! Raza

I'm as funny as a laughing hyena
I'm as kind as a bunny
I'm as smart as a book
I'm flexible like a rubber band
I'm as creative as trees

I'm as fast as a meteor
I'm as strong as metal
I'm as hot as a blue star
I'm as handsome as a king
I'm as smart as a calculator
I'm as brave as a lion
That's ME! Trevor






















 Can you guess what part of our portrait represents the adjectives we chose?

Special note:  Thank you to Ms. Betts for giving us the link to the video!  We had lots of fun creating "The New Me!"