I’ve been teaching letter writing to my Grade 1 students over the last few weeks and we had a bit of fun with a great story called Dear Greenpeace by Simon James.
For those of you who have never read the story, it’s told through a series of letters between a little girl named Emily and Greenpeace. Emily discovers a whale living in her pond and writes to Greenpeace to learn about (and how to look after) her whale.
It’s a very sweet, very endearing story, with a great environmental message, too.
My kiddos just adored it.
We used it as a springboard for writing imaginative letters to each other about wild animals living in strange places (e.g.: polar bears in freezers, dogs shaving on toilets, snakes in pipes, monkeys under beds, etc).
They had SO MUCH FUN brainstorming their ideas and their letters turned out great, too.
(For the beginning of the year, my expectations included an opening statement sentence, a sentence explaining how they knew what their animal was, and something that their animal was doing in its’ strange location.)
I’ve made up a couple of template pages for you to use if you’d like. Click on the sample letter below to download the letter and two template pages!