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!  :)