GIFTS

Words are Gifts


Nature Caught

The students in my after school activity, journalling class, are third to fifth graders, a quaint group that meets after school on Fridays, to write. More boys than girls signed up this year, which makes me very happy.

Yesterday, one of our writing prompts came from, The Curious Nature Guide, “Nature in Unexpected Places”. The assignment I came up with was for students to take a photograph of any form of nature, in and around the elementary classrooms and write about them.

These are the photographs they took on their individual hunts. They came back, we printed them and they wrote descriptive pieces around them.

The engagement was evident, both for the passionate and reluctant writers amongst them.

Below are the photographs:



11 responses to “Nature Caught”

  1. Juliette,

    “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…”

    I will be using your activity some with my students. Thank you so much for sharing. You have also given me the idea to start a writing club at my school. BTW, the pictures are beautiful and a testament that nature can be found almost anywhere.

    Liked by 2 people

  2. I love that you have more boys than girls in your journaling club so much! That’s wonderful! Thanks for giving them a safe place to be writers.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Me too! You had me at the first paragraph. Lucky writers. This sounds like so much fun.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. This must be a wonderful time for you to share your love of writing with students. This is an engaging activity for students. I am imagining doing it with my own. I need to crack that book open again, too. Thank you for sharing what you did with your students and the pictures.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Lovely! I needed to see some nature this morning! And I do love the prompt which I may have to borrow…thank you!

    Liked by 1 person

  5. The prompt and activity seem just right for this age group. The act of deciding which form of nature should be captured and then the process of deciding how to write about what was chosen. It’s great that students are offered plenty of space to choose their inspiration.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. This rich activity has me wondering what they will remember as they get older. I was thinking about the metaphor of “catching” and wondered would they realize that they can “catch” moments of their life in writing as they move into the teen and adult years. I hope so, but I have no doubt they will have fond memories of this activity – and they may have a new appreciation for nature.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. So many growing, living things caught by your budding journalists. I love the club idea and the activity you offered them to write. I am left wondering how writing pieces turned out. I’ll have to come back in hopes a catching a glimpse.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Lucky writers to have found a Friday afternoon chance to explore the power of words to make a lasting impression.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. There is so much to love about this post… writing to finish the week, engaged 3rd grade male writers, encouraging your young students to look for nature… so beautiful!

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Love the simple yet fruitful walk to find nature, you have some writers who are inspired and are pretty solid photographers too! ❤️

    Liked by 1 person

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About Me

I am an Elementary school teacher , I taught at an International IB School in Accra, Ghana. I am now teaching in Hanoi. Writing is my passion and I try to write daily, at least in my sentence a day journal, to capture all the blessings around me. I write with groups of writers, such as Teach Write and sometimes Ethical ELA. I also encourage my friends to write , so I created a platform to make that possible -Writing Run.

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