Summer Ideas

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Home : 2004 : May : 12

Summer Ideas
By Deb

During a Summer School I was trying to teach children the importance of adding details to their writing. I went to the store and bought lunch bags and a variety of snacks. I also bought some dog treats and crunchy kitty
food. I placed a treat in a bag and labeled it very specifically~ shaped like a triangle, covered with powdered cheese, yummy and delicious. Then I put that bag into another bag and gave a less descriptive label~cheese flavored. Then I put that bag into another bag and labeled it crunchy.
Each child got a bag...we took turns reading the outside bag to each other and guessing what might

be in it. We talked about how tasty it sounded. Then we took out the next bag and read the next label and discussed how the next description changed what might be in the bag. (If the 1st said 'sweet', it could be candy, cookies, Little Debbies, etc. If the second said crunchy and full of carmel, it couldn't be a Twinkie.)

Imagine the surprise of the child whose bag had a dog treat in it. It started with a label like crunchy and then went to salty and beefy and then went to your dog would love it. The child thought they were getting jerky and really it was a dog treat.

We did a lot of giggling but it made a point that the more details, the better picture there is. I then passed out different treats and the kids tried to write clues that would describe their treats. They eventually got to eat them.