Monday, May 14, 2012

Writing Workshop and Donor's Choose Project!

Thanks to two lovely parents and my marvelous mother-in-law... my donor's choose project was funded!

I wanted blank hardcover books and the publishing books (with pages that are sewed together) for my kiddos.  They absolutely love publishing (since we only do it once a month.)

Here are some of my little ones digging into writing.  I swear my room is always the most quiet when we publish.  They are always super excited!


I started using a format this year that is heavy on pre-writing and I have been pleasantly surprised with their writing.  We took our first grade writing diagnostic last week.  As a part of the diagnostic they are told to sketch out a picture of ideas for their story on a blank piece of paper.  I was so excited to see my kids sketching out and writing things that are normally on our pre-writing.  :)  I was such a proud teacher!  ;)

As I graded some of them, I even had a few students that added alliteration, onomatopoeia and even inferences into their stories!  I have some great authors!  They often say, "Well... I was inspired by ....."  It is just adorable!

Today our nutrition teacher, who is a retired teacher (and is paid by a grant) taught my class for half a day so that I could get assessments complete.  She is working for free for each teacher half day. 

I just love knowing that I work with people with such big hearts!  She also was my long term sub at the beginning of the year when I was out for the first 3 weeks of school with vertigo!  YIKES!!!  It was awful! 

She NEVER substitutes in k-1 but is such a sweetheart that she did it for me because she knew how worried that I was missing the first weeks of school.

I hope that you have someone just as great as our nutrition teacher in your work life!  :)


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4 comments:

  1. We used to publish, but then I got out of the habit. Thanks for the reminder. Which writing program / book were you using this year?
    Beleyne@gmail.com
    Barbara
    Grade ONEderful
    Ruby Slippers

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  2. Hi Barbara!

    I use a variety of different things. I LOVE Jennifer Jacobson's No More I'm Done! It made writing seem much more manageable. I actually read it all online for free and still bought the book. It is THAT good!

    I also use some Lucy Calkins items. Mostly for poetry. I LOVE how she teaches it.

    I use mentor texts using the 6 traits. I really went through my hundreds of read alouds and found books that fit. I purchased a few that were perfect for some of the traits.

    I use to try to make them publish everything which was a major no-no! Now they write one story a week for three weeks and the last week of the month- they publish. :)

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  3. Wow! Sounds like you have some budding authors there! Congraulations on getting funded-it always feels like Christmas all over again when that happens! :)

    NotJustChild'sPlay

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  4. Hey there, I starred this forever ago to tell you congrats on getting it funded....here I am to finally say:
    Congratulations!

    Elizabeth
    Fun in Room 4B

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