TIRED OF BACKWARD QUESTION MARKS? DON'T WALK THE PLANK JUST YET!

How y'all doin' out there?  Things are going well here.  We are rolling into our 6th week back at school and we are finding our "groove."  Now that daily procedures have been taught and practiced for nearly a month and a half, we can jump into more juicy standards-based content.  

The past two weeks have been ALL about crafting quality sentences.   We will continue to work on writing those detailed lines as we charge ahead, but a new element will be thrown into the mix this week -- questions.  Yup.  We are going to up the ante and toss in statements vs. questions this week.  However, we are going to hit 'em with this rather dry topic in a way that will delight everyone in the house!  Um . . . Captain Question Mark is going to come for a little visit.  

Now, you don't need to buy the packet to run with this in your room.  I am going to lay out the idea for you below.  If you want the extra themed elements, you can snag the pack (we will chat about that later).  I have blogged about this once before, but just in case you missed it, here you be!  

Before we get down to business with any practice, the kids will be introduced to "Captain Question Mark!"  I pulled this one out of my bum about three years ago after going rounds with those frustrating backward hooks that UG-LIF-I even the prettiest of papers.  All you need is pirate hook for the Captain (they are SO easy to find right now), something for "Peter" to fight with, and two brave kiddos.  Here's how I use this one . . .

1. Pick one student to be Captain Question Mark and give him/her to toy pirate hook.
2. Point out that the hook looks a lot like a question mark.
3. Select another student to play the part of Peter Pan and give him/her something to "fight" with -- I used an old lightsaber.
4. Invite your two babes to pretend fight in front of the class.  You can hear a pin drop when you do this . . . sell the sizzle my friends :)  
5. Point out how the HOOK is facing all of the action.  
6. Then, instruct the Captain to turn his/her back on Peter.  Point out how the hook is NO LONGER facing the action.
7. Let Peter safely "take down" the Captain.  It helps if you pick a real ham for this part.  Last year my sweet little gal got poked in the back and put on an Oscar-worthy performance.  She flopped on the ground, rolled around, and played dead.  It was classic!
8. Once you "put the lid back on," follow this up by saying that Captain Question Mark ALWAYS has to face the action (i.e. the sentence).  Use the play hook to help punctuate a question that you wrote on the board.  This extra visual helps solidify it.

This is one of my favorite lessons of the year.  The kids are absolutely delighted and it helps eliminate most, if not all, backward question marks.  I know it's a grand statement to make, but there is just something about the memory of Captain Question Mark that triggers appropriate punctuation.  

I decided to NOT stop here this year.  In an effort to leverage the Captain for even more learning goodness, I put together a whole question mark and question writing pack to go with this theme. 

After we role play, I have a killer themed pocket chart lesson that fits the whole hook theme.  It will be easy to get the kiddos to buy-in!

Let's see . . . mmmmm . . . this collection also has a crazy little craft that I can't wait to get up in our room.  I think the kids are going to love making this one.  These are definitely going on our sky wire.    

This pack also has lots of fun themed practice activities that not only get them punctuating sentences, but writing them as well.  I put Captain Question Mark on discount today (Sunday 9/21).

Before I jet out of here today, I wanted to offer you up a fun little freebie page. I had it up for the blog hop that I was in, but I didn't have time to promote it. Many of all you alls missed out on it as visitor numbers were down on Friday. So, just in case you didn't get to add this page to your files, here it is one more time!

CLICK HERE to snag your freebie.  

Thanks so much for taking the time to visit me today.  I will see you later this week with some Tally Mark fun.  The practice pack is well underway and I have a few quick and easy ways to teach these little mathematical lines that I will share ---- my own crew was beside themselves on Tuesday!

Big hugs and Merry Sunday.  See you soon.  Let's go BRONCOS!