Teaching Procedural Writing Through Art

Last week, my teaching partner Sarah and I decided that we would start our procedural writing unit.  I always love to teach procedural writing because there are so many fun lessons to do with procedural writing.  Last year students took pictures of each other eating gingerbread cookies and they had to write out how they ate their gingerbread cookie.  They completed the assignment with using the pictures that were taken and the text that they wrote to create a procedural writing video.  Here is one from last year:

Another great activity is to conduct an experiment.  Tomorrow we will be reading a recipe on how to grow crystals.  We will then create a "How To" piece about how we conducted the experiment.

Last Friday, we had an art project planned.  I had found a beautiful art project titled, "Birch Tress Art Lesson" on this fantastic site deepspacesparkle.  I wanted to incorporate the art lesson with what our students were learning about in writing.  

So, last Friday while Sarah modeled the art lesson, I used the Apple T.V to project my iPad onto the screen and the class and I wrote a procedure on how to create the birch trees scene.  I was able to take pictures as Sarah modeled the art and when she was finished we not only had an example of the art, we also had a completed procedural piece of writing that the students helped to create.  An added bonus was that I was able to immediately print it out and had a few copies floating around the room for children that needed to reread the procedure.  Here is our co-constructed "How To" piece:

Today, the children completed their art and they turned out beautifully.