Are you wondering how to teach third grade writing? Or perhaps you’ve found yourself googling ‘how do you teach a 3rd grader to write?’ Fear not, I’ve got you covered with this third grade writing curriculum!
This curriculum includes Unit 1 ‘Personal Narratives’, Unit 2 ’Opinion Writing’, Unit 3 ‘Informational Writing’, and Unit 4 ‘Fictional Narratives’ where your students will learn how to write engaging narratives, opinion writing pieces, and informative texts. This curriculum is standards based (to the common core) and genre based.
Let’s look at this third grade writing curriculum!
Are you struggling to teach writing? Do your students hate writing lessons?
Teaching writing can be so tricky, I get it!
In this curriculum, your students will develop a love of writing. For example, the graphic organizers, interactive notebooks, and final crafts will engage students much more than a blank piece of paper. The final writing pieces are fun, interactive and engaging!
Writing doesn’t have to be dull and students definitely shouldn’t hate writing.
Maybe you’re not provided with any writing curriculum by your school, or if you are, it’s awfully dull. If that’s the case, Terrific Writing is for you!
You might be a new teacher, new to 3rd grade, or perhaps you’ve always just struggled with teaching writing. So, you find yourself googling, ‘how do you teach 3rd graders to write an essay?’ or ‘how do you teach 3rd graders how to write a paragraph?’
Well no more googling is required if you grab this curriculum!
Unit documents
Everything you need is included in this third grade writing curriculum –
- List of common core standards that align with the units
- Teacher directions for the lesson plans
- Suggestions for differentiation and lesson times
- Lists of recommended mentor texts (with links)
- Unit scopes and at-a-glance calendars
- Lesson materials lists
This allows you to feel confident in the implementation of these units!
Lesson plans
Each writing unit has 25 lesson plans (that’s 5 weeks of writing lessons sorted)!
The step-by-step lesson plans are scripted with a lesson focus, mini lesson, think and share component, and independent writing time.
That’s right, you can get your evenings and weekends back, my friend! No more writing lesson plans!
What are the steps of the writing process for grade 3? What is the best way to teach 3rd grade writing? These units will break it down for you!
Posters
Each writing unit comes with a selection of posters to aid you in teaching the concepts. You can print, laminate them and display them in your classroom! Or you can show them digitally. Either way, they are great for giving definitions, ideas, and showing examples for each lesson’s topic. They will really help if you’re wondering how to improve 3rd grade writing skills for your students.
For instance, when you’re teaching a narrative writing lesson about characters or setting, there’s a poster with a definition of what a character is and what a setting is (with examples).
Mentor texts
How do yout teach a 3rd grader to write? You need to show them examples of the writing genres!
Popular picture books are listed in these units and linked to but guess what? This third grade writing curriculum comes with original mentor texts as well!
This way, you can show your students examples of the writing genres. But best of all, the mentor texts feature ALL of the lesson topics! Teaching dialogue or paragraphing? The original mentor text will have those things!
Above all, they’ve been written in a similar way to how your students might write AND they compliment the writing prompt/topic of the lesson. Students need to write about a country? There’s an informational mentor text about Australia! Students need to write a personal narrative about a special day? There’s a personal narrative mentor text about the waterpark!
These mentor texts can be printed in color or black and white at any size you like OR displayed digitally on as a PowerPoint or PDF!
Workbook covers
Need a way to organize your students’ worksheets and writing pieces? You can print workbook covers!
Each unit’s workbook covers have –
- boy and girl versions
- black and white options
- offer a word choice between folder, journal, or notebook
Graphic organizers, Writing prompts, and writing worksheets
Some students hate writing lessons. Consequently, teachers end up hating writing lessons too! If you’ve been wondering how to teach 3rd grade writing in an engaging way, you’re in luck.
These writing units are jam-packed full of ENGAGING activities!
Most of the activities are graphic organizers. This means that your students can fit their handwriting in and write as little or as much as they are capable of (or even just draw if they are struggling writers).
Cute clip art is featured on these 3rd grade writing worksheets, which is so much more fun than a lined piece of paper!
The writing prompts are also enjoyable for students (topics such as dinosaurs and space).
Hands-on activities
Worksheets and writing prompts are great, but what’s really engaging about this third grade writing curriculum is that hands-on activities are always included!
Each writing unit has 1-2 interactive notebooks. Some units even have cut and paste sorting activities. This helps your students share their learning in a FUN way!
Ready to grab this curriculum? Click here!
Writing Crafts
I just LOVE using crafts! Writing crafts make a writing piece so much more fun for students to work on. It gives them something to be creative on and proudly display or take home to show others.
Each writing unit features a writing craft as the final writing piece. All of them are flipbook/booklet style, so that students can write as much as they like.
Each unit ends with a publishing party where students can receive a certificate and show off their craft. Ther certificate comes in girl/boy versions and color/black and white. There are even some compliment notes so that students can praise each other’s work.
Task cards
There’s nothing worse than students wailing ‘I’m done, now what?’
In this curriculum, each writing unit features a set of early finisher task cards. Students can respond to the writing prompt with a quick writing piece each lesson or they can work on a large writing piece over many lessons.
Obviously, the prompts are so cute and fun! They come in color and black and white.
Assessment rubric
Assessment is important when teaching writing and so a rubric is included for each unit. But rubrics can be confusing, right?! Therefore, I knew that these units also needed –
- Teacher directions, examples, and elaborations for the rubrics
- Videos with tips for using the rubrics
So, you’ll feel confident when it comes to grading the pre and post-assessment pieces.
Are you short on time?
These 5 week units have EVERYTHING you need, because let’s be honest, teachers are time poor.
Let’s get your evenings and weekends back, my friend! Take a break from lesson planning and searching for engaging materials. It’s all right here.
What other teachers have to say
“I have purchased many writing resources, but this is by far is the best” – Rebecca O.
“I just moved to third grade and this resource helped me figure out how to get started with writing in a grade level I’ve never taught before” – Angela W.
“This is the BEST writing curriculum I have found on TPT. The lesson plans are simple, well set up, and I love that each lesson plan has a mentor text to go along with it” – Rebecca M.
“I absolutely loved using this to teach writing. My students were engaged. I was actually enjoying teaching writing and it wasn’t overwhelming for them” – Jaime G.
Check out this curriculum on TPT here!
Save 10%
If you’d like to grab it from this website you’re on, you can use the coupon code TERRIFIC10 at checkout to save 10%! Click here.
P.S. – Interested in free crafts and worksheets? Access my free resource library here!
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