First Grade Opinion Writing | Unit 5 | 20-Day Workshop

Turn “I like it” into an opinion a reader can understand. Help your first graders name a topic, explain their thinking, and write with a reader in mind. Opinion Studio is a four-week writing workshop that pairs daily teaching guidance with engaging mentor stories, concrete models, reusable partner activities, and generous student writing space.

Fox and Raccoon carry a friendly disagreement through the unit, showing children that writers can have different preferences—and still explain their choices clearly. As the story develops, students learn to give relevant reasons, add helpful examples, listen to another view, and revise without losing their own voice.

The 20-day sequence builds one writing decision at a time:

• Week 1: Choose a familiar topic, state an opinion, and plan an opinion piece.
• Week 2: Give a relevant reason, connect ideas with because, and replace vague explanations with specific details.
• Week 3: Develop a reason with an example, listen to another opinion, and use reader questions to clarify meaning.
• Week 4: Write a related ending, revise purposefully, check sentence conventions, publish, and reflect on growth.

Your download includes:

• A complete 171-page unit with daily teaching guidance and a clickable lesson map.
• A separately organized 59-page student resource packet drawn from the complete unit.
• A continuing Fox-and-Raccoon mentor story, two complete mentor opinion pieces, and visual writing anchors.
• Realistic classroom imagery, colorful story illustrations, and teacher-created crayon models.
• Clear manuscript examples and student pages with open primary writing bands, large drawing areas, and extended NAME and DATE lines.
• Four reusable partner activities: Find My Topic, Reason Match, Example Builders, and Opinion Repair.
• The cards, matching mats, directions, checking keys, revision challenges, and response pages needed for those activities.
• Planning, drafting, revision, publishing, reflection, word-bank, and desk-check resources.
• Entry and exit assessment materials, a teacher rubric, illustrative writing exemplars, and four fillable weekly class snapshots.
• Reteaching guidance, an optional conference record, and a family connection page.

Spend less planning time piecing together disconnected resources. The stories, models, partner tasks, and student pages are connected so you can demonstrate a useful move and give children time to apply it.