Asalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu ladies.  We finished up our latest read aloud, ‘A Journey to Jo’Burg’ by Beverley Naidoo a few weeks ago, because the kiddos were captivated by the story.  However, we only just finished the literary guide, and finished up with the final activity; writing our own cinquains.

The Brave Writer Arrow guide clearly explains what a cinquain is and how to write one, so I paraphrased and wrote it out on the whiteboard.

Since the activity was part of our literary discussion for Journey to Jo’burg, we did our first few cinquains based on the story together.

After, we decided to do write our first individual cinquain about Ramadan and one by one we read them aloud; it was lovely to hear what we all came up with.  My youngest was also involved, drawing pictures instead of writing.

Then, it was time to change things up a little. So, before the lesson began I had written down a number of topics and placed them in the jar.  The kids and I had to close our eyes, and then write a cinquain about the topic we were given.   They loved this part of the lesson as topics were so random; from Lego to Lasagna!

This was such a fun lesson Allahuma barik, we didn’t even realise an hour and a half had gone by!  And this is why when we come to our Brave Writer Language Arts lesson, my kids don’t feel like its work because it’s presented in such a unique way.

After the lesson was over, I decided to keep the jar on the table and the kids were writing cinquains in their spare time.  Since they enjoyed it so much a typed up a few more topics and replaced the ones in the jar.  I’ve left a few blanks so you can write your own too.

Download your copy HERE.  Happy Brave Writing!