Persuasive Commercials

What better way to motivate your kiddos to learn about opinion writing than writing their own persuasive commercials!  :)

I was completely hands off for this project and what my first grade students developed is amazing! 

We started out by reading the book, Have I Got a Book for You.

This book is about the character trying to sell the reader the book.  He tries almost every sales technique possible to sell the book.  My students love this book!  It is a little over their heads at points but they still enjoy listening to it.

 

Then we watched some persuasive commercials.  THANKS to the Blendspace user that created these!  I simply copied their "plans." 

http://blnds.co/1dQoO5f 

 

SIDE NOTE: If you haven't jumped on the Blendspace wagon yet-  do it!  :)  It is super easy to use and organize online materials for lessons.  :)

 

 

After that, the students formed groups based on similar interests.  Some wanted to make a "Save the Animals" commercial, while others wanted to persuade others to play Minecraft, buy a certain video game etc.

 

Then I gave the students blank script writing paper (coming soon in a TPT product.)  and set them loose! 

After about 2 days the students came to the carpet for a lesson on fluency expression.  Students were set loose again to work on their expression. 

 

Then, students worked on props to hold.  They also came up to me and we searched Google images to find a "setting" for their movie.  We took a screen shot and made a jpeg image with their setting.  Some students at this point decided on asking an "actor" to help them out by being a satisfied customer etc.  They were super creative!  :)

 

Finally, we discussed movements and how people can read body language to infer.  Students practiced their expression and also their movements.

 

Finally taping day arrive about 6 days after they received their blank script paperwork.  I bought wrinkle resistant green fabric.  Enlisted the help of some "prop" helpers to hold the fabric.  (Later I will attach Velcro!)  Then we taped in front of the green screen to create our commercials.  I learned the hard way to keep some "prop" clothing on hand too.  If the students had on a green shirt they became a floating head of arms!  It became a great learning experience because students said, "Maybe that is how they make the ghosts on real movies!"

Using iMovie you are able to insert the setting image and the video to make a real looking commercial. 

I shared all of the videos with parents using one of my new favorite tools, Dropbox.  Parents could view the videos by the link that I provided.  The link is not searchable therefore I didn't need to worry about privacy issues.  :)

I LOVE my techy friend that inspires me to do more each day!  Hopefully this activity inspired my kids to write more.  :)