Third Grade Reasons to Not Smoke

Last week I was informed that my third graders had to write an opinion piece.  Now I understand that is part of Common Core for next year but had no idea that they needed to write one this year. At the time I found out, I was only going to have about 6 more class meetings and for an opinion piece to be written correctly, there must be background knowledge. 

Yesterday, I embarked on my journey of giving my third graders some background knowledge on the ills of tobacco. ( I was hoping they already had an opinion and that it agreed with mine.)   We read a non-fiction passage and then we used the internet to find reasons to not smoke.  We found your typical ones.  It causes cancer.  Emphysema can result if you smoke.  It makes your teeth yellow.  It is costly.  It smells bad.  All of these typical answers.

 Everything was going real well until my third group came in.  Some of them struggle with what they are reading and often times just copy things down thinking they are doing the assignment.  They want to get done without any assistance because that might mean redoing.  I walked up to one who was working diligently.  He had a website that gave reasons not to smoke.  He was starting to copy the reason-

Here it is----
. Smoking can cramp your style in the bedroom.Smoking can affect circulation; with less blood flow to your genitals, arousal for both men and women can be more difficult.

Quickly, I found him another reason for not smoking and walked away learning the biggest lesson of the day.    When using the Internet in third grade, it might be best to be specific about the websites you want them to use. 


Have a Happy Day!