Tried It Tuesday: Dear Mr. Blueberry

I'm excited to share a super cute writing activity with you today for Fourth Grade Flipper's Tried It Tuesday linky party!

The activity I'm sharing with you today comes from Elementary AMC.  I love, love, loved her Persuasive Letter Writing activity and so did my students!

This writing activity goes with a cute book called Dear Mr. Blueberry by Simon James. Here is the description of the book from Amazon.com " It's vacation time, so Emily has to write to her teacher to help when she discovers a blue whale living in her pond. Mr. Blueberry answers that she must be mistaken, because whales live in the ocean, not in ponds. 
Throughout the summer, Emily and Mr. Blueberry exchange letters, until Emily has a happy surprise to share with her teacher. In the process, Emily learns a lot about whales. And Mr. Blueberry leans even more about imagination, faith, and love."

After reading the book, I gave each student a letter from Jane that is included in this activity. Each of these letters describe how Jane thinks she has a different animal living in her backyard. The students then have to use the facts from the letter to write their own letter persuading Jane that she doesn't actually have a lion, shark, elephant, etc. living in her backyard. 

Everything you could possibly need to teach letter writing and persuasive writing is included in this packet. My students had so much fun writing their letters back to Jane. In their final product I had the students draw pictures of their perspective of what was in Jane's yard and then of Jane's perspective. Here are a few pictures of the final projects!