Details

Sometimes simple stories like "I got a new cat." are ok, however like many things, a sentence like that is a place to start and grow from. To help my kiddos in 2nd grade grow I did an activity with them about how to add details using Mr. Potato Head.
I have a large amount of Potato Head part that I have acquired over the years (black Friday, Disney World, and rummage sales).  The more pieces you have the more interesting this will be however a small amount of parts will work.
I divided the class into 4 groups and I gave each group a bucket of parts and one plastic body. I them gave them 3 minutes to create an interesting potato out of the parts they had. Once the three minutes was up I had one person from each group bring up their potato and set it on a table in-front of the class.  I then had the entire class join us around the table. I then had a member from each group explain to me what their potato head looked like. Once each group had gone I pulled out my potato head. He only had eyes and shoes on. I described him to the class. We then had a class discussion about why their potatoes were so much more interesting then mine was. We talked about how sometimes we write stories that do not have very much details and how they are not very interesting. The children then had the option to go work on adding details to the current piece they were working on or to write a story about the potato their group made.
After school that day I took pictures of the potato heads and wrote two different stories. The one on the bottom was about my potato and was a very simple story. The other story was about one of the potatoes. I then made this poster and put in up near the writing area in the classroom. Many children look bacvk at the poster as a reminder about details.