Squiggle Stories...and a new blog!

Happy Saturday everyone! I hope everyone got to sleep in...me?? Not so much. My little cuties always get us up by 6:00.  But that's ok. It just means I have more hours in my day to get things accomplished, right?! 

Sure.

Anyway...I wanted to show you one of my impromptu lessons from last week...or rather the week before.

I had a good writing lesson planned, but when it came to teaching it, I really wasn't feeling it anymore, so I wanted to change it...but had no "Plan B" in my drawers to pull out.  

Hmmmm....what could I do??  Squiggle Stories!! 

Now, I know this is nothing new. BUT, I'm always so in love with how they turn out! What I did was just give each kid a paper and told them to make a small little squiggle mark. Then, they passed it around their group (clockwise). Then I came around with a black marker and went over the squiggle line and then they had to draw a picture with the squiggle mark. It could be ANYTHING.  Here are some examples of what some of the kids came up with .....

Here's mine that I used as an example. 

Then it came time to plan. I just folded a paper into 4ths and they wrote out the characters and setting....then they did the beginning, middle, and end. I told them that they had to have a problem in the middle and then a solution in the end. 

Here is my example that I did for them.

And here is their final products...I just LOVE all the different stories they came up with!

Click HERE to get the free writing templates!

Ok...so you may have noticed something different on my pictures....

Yep! I have a name change!!!

AND a new blog design to go with it!!!

I know...it's going to be hard to get used to the name. I just wasn't feeling "The Teacher's Cauldron" anymore...and it took me a LONG time to figure out what name I WOULD like. I bothered my blogging friends A LOT about it (they are probably glad I've FINALLY passed that part of my life..haha!) In fact, my friend Lori, from Teaching with Love and Laughter thought of this name. It's perfect, don't you think (those who know me)?! 

I hope this doesn't mean you'll forget about me! I tried to keep my blog button similar (yellow) to the old one...and my face is now on my facebook page...so maybe that'll help!? I hope you'll still love me! Because I really do love my new blog!! Thank you to Megan from A Bird in Hand Designs. She was so patient with me - so wonderful to work with!