Beanie Baby Descriptive Writing Freebie

This may have been the longest Monday ever.  I must have kept myself super busy this weekend because I am pooped.  I have been getting pretty burnt out on the Treasures Reading Series lately and I am not a huge fan of the writing prompts either.  If you use the series I am sure you know what I am talking about.  “Write a story about what you do at night or during the day”…...Really???? 

Anyway...I decided to make my writing a little more entertaining last week.  The focus was descriptive writing, which is one of my favorites to teach.  When trying to come up with a cute and creative idea  I came across an old basket of Beanie Babies…..yes you heard it right Beanie Babies.  How old are those things???  I am pretty sure I own around 50 of those things.  I decided to let the kids secretly pick their favorite Beanie Baby and place it in a brown paper sack.  This way no one would see the animal they chose.  They were so excited about keeping it a surprise!!!   The kiddos worked so hard and quietly (sooo quiet) to describe their animal and write about it.  At the end of the week we shared our writing and tried to guess which animal they had.  It was a lot of fun and it really helped the kids realize how important details are. 

Here is an example of the graphic organizer I made to go with the writing.  After their organizer was filled out they had to cut out their picture they drew.  That was later used in their final draft and shared writing.  See the picture below to see the finished writing.

They placed the picture under the flap labeled, What is my animal?  When they lifted the flap the picture was under it.

My kids really loved this writing activity and I got some of the best writing out of them.  It’s amazing how creative kids can be with their writing when you let them choose what to write about.  You can snag your freebies below.  I hope you enjoy.

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