Fifth graders at Trevvett Elementary have been learning how to distinguish between facts and opinions (SOL5.6i), and they have been writing with adjectives and adverbs in English (SOL5.8b). Today, students in Ms. Golden’s class used PicMonkey to create winter posters that included facts, opinions, adjectives, and adverbs. First we reviewed clues for differentiating facts and opinions. Facts are undeniable truths that can be proven with evidence. They are true for everyone, even if they don’t believe it. For example, “He is driving quickly over the speed limit” is a fact. It can be proven with measuring devices (even if the driver doesn’t believe it). Opinions are usually based on feelings, and they can be different for different people. For example, “He is a bad driver” is an opinion. You do not have to agree with it. Next, we identified the adjectives and adverbs in the sample sentences (and other sentences the students came up with). I explained that they would be creating winter posters with two sentences about winter. One needed to be a fact and the other needed to be an opinion. Their classmates would try to differentiate them. They also needed to include an adjective and/or adverb in each sentence. To make the posters, we went to PicMonkey and clicked “Edit a photo.” This allows you to edit a photo without logging into an account. The students took photos of themselves with their webcams and uploaded them. Then they used the special Winter effects to decorate their pictures with frost, snow, rosy cheeks, and clip art. I showed them how to used the text tool to write their sentences and how to change the color of the adjective or adverb. They saved their photos and uploaded them to a discussion in Schoology with a question for their classmates to answer (What is the opinion? What is the fact? What is the adverb? What is the adjective?). You can see them all here.
