Magnifying a Small Moment

In 2nd grade, we are working on writing narratives, or small moment stories. These stories must be true events that happened in real life. We are focusing on zooming in and giving lots of detail about one particular part of the story. For example, instead of talking about your entire vacation to Florida, talk about one particular day and one particular place you went to. 

Writers use their senses to describe a small moment in big detail. We pay close attention to everything about that small moment to describe what was happening, as if the reader was there, too! What is the best way to describe something? Write using lots of adjectives! In order to practice writing adjectives, the 2nd graders made close observations of pumpkins and gourds to zoom in on details. 

We used magnifying glasses to take a closer look at the pumpkins. To describe them, we thought about our senses; how did the pumpkins look? Feel? What size are they? We learned that the best way to zoom in on a small moment is to "magnify" it, by writing with lots of detail!