Cell Phone Templates:

Students Write a Text Message and
Draw a Picture About Their Summer Vacations

Cell Phone Templates: How many times have students had to write an essay about their summer vacations during Grades 1 - 5?

If you choose to use a tradition lesson plan idea for this writing activity, your students will likely be very bored in your class. This is not something that you want your students to feel during the first week that they are in your classroom!

Instead, provide your students with an engaging and fun way for them to write about what they did during their summer vacations with these unique cell phone text message templates.

Instead of being bored, your students will go home during the first week of school anxious to tell their parents about a fun project activity that they completed in your class.

Note: In the example above, you will notice text message abbreviations and symbols used in place of words.

Normally, I would not allow my students to use these types of abbreviations and symbols in their creative writing assignments, but for this activity, I felt that it was appropriate.

My students really enjoy being able to write their summer vacation text messages using the abbreviations and symbols that they commonly use everyday when they write text messages to their own friends.

For some of the abbreviations that my students used, they had to "translate" their messages for me, as I am not up to date on all of the codes and symbols that young people use in text messages these days!

Are you also looking for a unique activity that you can complete the first or second day of school that will provide you with student work samples so that you can create a colorful bulletin board display during the first week of school?

This is an ideal Back To School creative writing activity that will not take much time, is easy to assemble, and will provide you with student work samples that you can post on your bulletin board immediately.

You will be able to quickly design an eye catching bulletin board display featuring your students' work using the bulletin board banner and additional cell phone accent pieces that are included with this set of Back to School teaching resources.

These cell phone templates measure 6 inches in width and 17 inches in height.

This Back To School teaching resources set contains the following components:

• First draft writing worksheet (1 page)
• Black and white cell phone templates (2 pages)
• Color cell phone templates (12 pages)
• Bulletin board display banner (5 pages)
• Colorful cell phone bulletin board display accent pieces (16 pages)
• Grade level (Grades 1 - 8) cell phone bulletin board display accent pieces (4 pages)

For creative writing assignments, I believe that it is important for students to go through the writing process.

For this reason, my students never begin their creative writing assignments by writing on their final draft cell phone templates, instead they write on first draft worksheets. Then, they edit and revise their work on their own, with a partner, or in individual writing conferences with me.

Below is an example of the first draft writing worksheet that is included in this creative writing teaching resources set. The writing lines and spaces on the first draft worksheet match the lines and spaces on the final draft cell phone templates.

After students have edited and revised their first drafts, you should give them their final draft templates.

There are two templates for students to glue together to assemble their cell phones. The two cell phone templates have thick borders around them, which makes it easy for students to cut out these templates on their own.

To help give you an idea of what these finished cell phone projects look like, below is a photograph of a bulletin board display using these same phone templates.

This example is from my cell phone book report projects, so the text area and drawing areas are a bit different than they are in this set of teaching resources. The cell phone templates in this set are exactly the same size and shape as the templates in the photograph below, and they measure 6 inches in width and 17 inches in height.

RELATED PICTURE BOOK
TO READ YOUR STUDENTS:

How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague
Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources

Are you looking for a book to read to your students that is related to the same topic as these cell phones projects?

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, written and illustrated by Mark Teague, is a great book to read to your students at the beginning of the year to inspire them to write about their own summer holidays and to use their imaginations.

This story is about Wallace Bleff and his oral report on the classic topic: "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." This would be a great book to read to your students before they begin the cell phone projects that are found on this page.

During his summer vacation, Wallace's parents send him out west to visit his Aunt Fern.

Wallace's parents tell him, "Your imagination is getting too wild. It will do you some good to relax for a while."

It won't take long for your students to realize that Wallace still has a wild imagination as he tells his class all about his adventures when he is captured by cowboys. This exaggerated summer tale is told through rhyming sentences and the art work is done in warm acrylics.

On my How I Spent My Summer Vacation Lesson Plans page you will find a unique project that I have created specifically to go along with this delightful back to school picture book.

Click on the link below to read more information about this picture book and to view the lesson plans that I have created for this Back to School read aloud book.

Go To: How I Spent My Summer Vacation Lesson Plans

Creative Writing Teaching Resources: