Using Powerful Words: The Candy Corn Bandit

Halloween was a week ago, but I wanted to post a lesson that we did that incorporated some Halloween art and writing.
I found this cute Candy Corn Bandit on this blog, The Inspired Apple.  I introduced the kids to the Candy Corn Bandit through a story that I told them about how he sneaks into houses and snatches delicious candies.  They were very taken with this Candy Corn Bandit.  The students created their own candy corn bandits.  We used tracers for the three parts.  The kids created their own masks.  Each student was given googley eyes and two candy corns to add to their picture.

The next day, I wanted each student to write a short introduction about their candy corn bandit.  This term, we have been working on using powerful words in our writing.  This seemed like the perfect chance to work on this skill, since it was a short writing piece.  We brainstormed powerful words for things that taste good.  We also talked about different words for taking things such as sneak, snatch, or steal.  The kids were very excited to talk about the mischievous tricks of their candy corn bandits.

I wanted to keep a record of words that we brainstormed, so we could refer to it during other writing times. So we started a descriptive word wall of words that we have talked about or words that have come up through stories we have read.