Boxing Clever with Alan Peat part 3

Today has been a very hectic but productive day in year 2 for both children and teachers! We have been continuing with our Katie Morag books using the structure of Boxing Clever.

We began our morning with page 3 of our books and box 3 of Boxing Clever which is 'Where Next''. as the children had already placed the post it notes on the relevant parts of their Katie Morag story I began by putting, in note form,  some of the things they could include on their page depending which story they were on. The children then drafted their sentences checking for capital letters and punctuation and then had this checked by myself or my T.A. Once it was checked they then went off to write it into their Katie Morag book.

I thought that as this is quite a long process and we still had Assembly, Maths and P.E. to do today that the best case scenario would see us completing box 3 and 4 at most. How wrong was I? They were clearly on a roll and absolutely loving the praise they were receiving both for content and presentation.

For boxes 4 (Why?) and 5 (What Goes Wrong) I wrote further instructions on the board. See the picture above to get a sense of how brief my instructions actually were. The children then went away and we repeated the whole read, draft, check with teacher, write up structure from before.

The results have amazed me! Below are two examples of the books so far. As you can see they are beautifully written and in the children's own words. One of the pieces is from a level 1A writer and the other a level 2C so they are not my best writers at all but you can see how well they have done and what standard they have reached.

The best part of all of it though has been the way previously struggling and in fact reluctant writers have achieved so much and actually enjoyed the whole process. Quite simply I think this is because of the structure of Boxing Clever which just makes sense to them. It is so easy to follow and understand and just makes sense. I have even had pupils ask this afternoon during a reading session if they could get on with box 6!

We do still have 6, 7 and 8 to do followed by the drawing and colouring but after that each child in the class will have produced their own book. I have promised them that they will then be displayed in the school library for everyone to see and they are all excited at the prospect. I am also sure their parents will be delighted when they finally take them home.

Look out for Boxing Clever part 4, the conclusion, coming soon to a blog by you!!!