This activity has to be modeled but it is a great activity for the beginning of the year in First Grade. Students can feel some success as readers even if they're non-readers. Use the newspaper to discover nouns. Students then circle the word in text with a marker. The activity really makes this first grade objective a lot more meaningful and fun.
Students love to look at the pictures.
To inspire creative writing, students cut out pictures from the newspaper, glue the picture on a large piece of white paper and write a story about what they think the picture is about. Students use words they know and articulate sounds to write unknown words in order to do as much as they c an on their own. Before using this at a center, independent work, or whole group it is best to model the process and various sample stories. They enjoy doing this activity several times a week.