A Bad Case of the Stripes (cute book, cuter bulletin board)

Do not adjust your monitor.

And don't judge my picture-taking abilities.

This photo is intentionally blurry as a result of my mad photoshop skills. I'm crafty like that. I'm just not comfortable putting my little friends' faces online, but I think you can still get the idea.

I loved this bulletin board. It was fun and colorful and easy and included a sample of their work. What's not to love.

A Bad Case of the Stripes is a great book. It lends itself to so many discussions and writing activities. I did this the first week of school and since I wasn't yet too familiar with my students' abilities, I kept it simple.

I gave them the prompt of: "Camilla Cream loves lima beans, but I love..."

We used the opportunity to remind them of their second grade skills (webbing, supporting details, etc). Their direction was to select a favorite food and compose a paragraph that stays on topic.

I had taken close-up head shots of each student for an in-class display. I simply photocopied those on an enlarged setting and cut them out. The students used water colors to paint on their stripes and we glued them to the bottom of their writing sample.

I wanted to display the book with it, but hadn't had the time to scan and print the cover.

Remember, this was the first week of school. There is barely time to breathe that week.

I solved my problem by stapling a large ziploc bag to the board and slid the book inside.

I'm SO doing that again with other books.