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Writing Lesson Plan Sample

“Fairytale Mail”

Overview/Reflection…..2

Lesson Plan…..3

Pictures of Student Work…..4-6

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Reflection/ Overview

During my student teaching experience, I decided to create different

writing lessons focusing on mail and writing to different types of audiences. In

addition to matching the current Harcourt Reading Series story, Goodbye

Curtis, these mini lessons also gave the children an opportunity to learn about

our mailing system in a fun way!

To start the lessons, I read the story The Jolly Postman to the students as

a read aloud material. After reading this story about different fairytale char-

acters writing letters to each other, we talked about all the different types of

letters sent to the different fairytale characters. Then, we talked about all the

different ways we could cross fairytales to create our own fairytale mail book-

let.

The children loved mixing up the fairytales to create their own new ver-

sion! We decided first on writing a friendly letter from one character to anoth-

er. As a class, we wrote a friendly letter from Little Red Riding Hood to Sneezy,

one of the Seven Dwarfs, asking for help; we also included our new skill of

writing addresses to create an envelope for our mail. The next day, the stu-

dents wrote their own friendly letter and addressed their own envelope.

This pattern continued for the rest of the week. I would read an excerpt

from The Jolly Postman for the class. Then, we would discuss what type of mail

it was and created our own class example. Then, the students would pro-

duce their own. We worked on writing friendly letters, invitations, postcards,

and advertisements; each of these types of mail included an addressed en-

velope by the students and contained different fairytale characters!

Throughout these lessons, I continually saw my students become more

and more creative. Each morning, I would have them making up new ideas

for characters before the school day even started. Seeing the children get

this excited over mail, something most children don’t even understand with

email and technology these days, was very inspiring and helped me come

up with more creative ideas in the future!

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Lesson Plan

Anne Beitler

Subject/ Unit Writing/ Fairytale Mail

Objectives TSWBAT write a friendly letter with the correct formatting and content

TSWBAT correctly write and address an envelope

State Standards 1.4.2.B: Write informational pieces using illustrations when relevant. (e.g., descriptions, letters, single-

topic reports, illustrations).

Materials/

Resources

*Letter Writing Template

*Envelope Template

*The Jolly Postman

Anticipatory Set

(5 min)

1. Read Mentor Text Example from The Jolly Postman

2. Talk about friendly letters: what is it? Why do we use them? Who do you send

a friendly letter to?

Instruction/

Procedure

(25 minutes)

1. Brainstorm ideas as a class for our Fairytale Mail Stories; having characters

from different fairytales interacting outside of their stories. Choose an exam-

ple together.

2. Create a friendly letter as a class. Be sure to go over important letter writing

parts: greeting, body, closing, signature

3. Allow the children to write their own body but be sure to give examples of

topics to talk about

Closure

(5 min)

1. Review how to properly address an envelope. Brainstorm ideas about streets

and cities for the characters to live in.

Assessment Formative: Examples, Questions, Answered, Observations

Summative: Character Fairytale Mail: Friendly Letter

Adaptations

(if needed)

*Review the assignment with the children as they write; be sure to include lots of

examples and assistance from the teacher

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Pictures of Student Work

Fairytale Mail

Cover

Examples of

Creating and writing

addresses, and

correctly labeling an

envelope

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Pictures of Student Work (continued)

Friendly Letter

Example (left):

Wicked Witch to Ginger-

bread man

Advertisement

Example (right):

Hardware Store

(for the Three Little Pigs)

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Pictures of Student Work (continued)

Postcard Example:

From Jack (visiting Pittsburgh) to

the Giant in the Beanstalk