I’ve always loved wandering through Barnes and Noble and just looking for books that catch my eye. I usually look through the seasonal displays of hard cover books first. I read through books with a “teacher eye” and I’m always asking myself how I could use this book in the classroom. I’m constantly thinking, “Where’s the learning in this?” The Rocket books were no-brainers! In Rocket Writes a Story , the little bird (Rocket’s teacher) encourages Rocket to look around him to find inspiration. Rocket watches things, sniffs around, and writes simple ideas on notecards. He collects and keeps them as inspiration for his stories.
This is what we do as writer’s in Writer’s Workshop! We use simple things going on around us as inspiration.
Earlier this week, we used Rocket to help motivate our writing. We collected words that helped inspire us. We talked about things we’ve seen lately, our favorite activities, and things we absolutely love. We had a long list of ideas that we could write about! There were cats, dogs, bunnies, pumpkin farms, Blue Angels, Taxi cabs, sports, recess equipments, and so much more!
It’s really the beginning of a Writer’s Notebook for us. The kids loved this activity and they loved sharing their ideas with each other during Sharing Circle. Today, many kids went to look at our ideas before Writer’s Workshop. You can only imagine my joy! I love it when a tool we’ve created is put to use right away.
As your kids are going through their day, remind them to tuck ideas away and save them for later. You never know what can be turned into a story. I can’t wait to see where that Taxi turns up in our books.
Happy writing!