Journal Writing Through the Eyes of a Bunny

Hi everyone!  I'm Anita from Primary "Teach"spiration, and I'm delighted to blog here on iTeachSecond.  I loved teaching second grade for many years, but now I enjoy life as a full-time teacher-author.

Today I'd like to share with you a fun, engaging way I got my students to love writing through the eyes of a bunny.  It was around this time every year that I had my second graders read Missing: One Stuffed Rabbit by Maryann Cocca-Leffler. It was the perfect time for the story, of course, because it is about a bunny rabbit who goes missing!

Coco the stuffed rabbit in Mrs. Robin's second grade class has a diary.  Every night Coco goes home with a student, and that student gets to write the events of the evening in Coco's voice.
When it's Janine's turn, she gets to keep Coco and his diary for the entire weekend.  As the caregiver

Click on the image to find this book at Amazon.

of Coco and his diary, she takes him everywhere with her.  But after a day at the mall, she realizes that the rabbit is lost and she's unable to find him.

She's so sad to report the missing toy to the class on Monday morning. The second graders remember that there was a toy drive at the mall and Coco may have wound up at the hospital children's ward.  Sure enough, they find him at the hospital with a wheelchair-bound girl, They agree that, even though they will miss him, Coco should remain with the girl. She needs him more than they do. Janine writes the last journal entry in Coco's diary about his new home and new name.

My students really enjoyed this story, especially the extension activities that followed.  We would finish the story on a Friday, and over the weekend, I would pick up a cute stuffed bunny at one of the thrift stores and a small 3-ring binder.

I created a binder cover and journal writing pages to fit in it.  Then I wrote the first diary entry in the rabbit's voice to introduce him when I read it to the class on Monday.

The kids got so excited when I introduced our new class pet!  We voted on the perfect name for the bunny and drew the name of the first student to take him home for the night.  Each night or weekend, a student took Fluffy (or whatever the given name) and his journal home to write about the events that transpired. Sometimes Fluffy got to go to a ballgame, a movie, out for pizza, or grandma's house. His life was good and full of adventure.  It was the student's job to write a diary entry in Fluffy's voice, or point of view, to read to the class the next day.

When Fluffy and his diary returned to school the next day with the student in charge, that student read the diary entry to the class.  Then he or she passed Fluffy and the diary on to the next student in charge.  The kids absolutely loved this!!  And so did Fluffy, of course! :)

If this is an activity you would like to try with your class, I'm leaving you a free sample of my binder cover and journal writing pages.  There are two different color choices for the cover and two different line sizes for writing  All you have to do is click on the image to download and copy the pages you need.

Thanks for stopping by our blog!  I hope you have found this post helpful! :)

Anita Keil (Primary "Teach"spiration)

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Missouri, USA