Grow Writing Love by Writing Letters... and a Funny!

Here's a quick post to tell you about a resource that is particularly useful now. We all have our official writing units to teach, dictated by Common Core or State Standards– opinion, information and narrative writing. I get the importance of those, but that certainly is not the only kind of writing kids enjoy learning about, so we take little bends in the road to incorporate other kinds of writing. One of those is letter writing. I put together a resource to help you expand letter writing into a mini-unit.

With Valentines coming up it's a great time to write to parents, grandparents, far away friends and friends at school. The pack comes with some anchor charts, stationery, and teaching ideas. Freshen up your writing center with these new materials and penny stamps and see the kids write with new vigor to a specific audience. For only two bucks, you'll get more than your money's worth. 

I'm hoping to launch my own letter writing unit next week, pulling out the classroom mailbox which will stay up for the rest of the year. In addition to leaving materials in my writing center after the mini-unit is done in probably just a week, I'm going to begin Friendly Friday Letter Writing. Friendly Friday letter writing means everyone will pull a name out of a hat, or a popsicle stick out of the name jar, and then "secretly" write to that person... well, as secretly as five year olds can do anything. snort. Then we will do quick delivery of our letters, and let instant fun and warm feelings ensue. 

This little postcard stationery works great for a Friendly Friday quick write! It's part of the pack. 

Friendly Friday letter writing is one of our Hygge Hour activities... pronounced, Hoo-guh, by the way. Don't know about Hygge? Then you should click here to check it out! 

To get to the Let's Write to Someone pack click on either of the pictures above. While you're at my store, check out all the FREEBIES. I have more resources for free than resources for sale. snort. One of my list paper freebies has been downloaded more than 3,800 times! It always cracks me up... and warms my heart... to see my resources downloaded many thousand times over. Love. Also love it when people leave product comments, which they don't do near often enough! hint.

You can see a post with more ways to use the Let's Write to Someone pack by clicking HERE. 

Hope your kiddos enjoy letter writing as much as I know my kidpeople will. Click on the photos above to find the pack. 

And now for a quick grin!

Just today, as I opened my mouth to answer the same question for the fourth time, a pipsqueak piped up, and with a roll of her eyes interjected, "Do not say that to Mrs. Wright AGAIN! She is going to get frus-ter-a-ted!"

It cracked. me. up. Who says five year olds can't get another's perspective, feel empathy, or find themselves just a little bit frus-ter-a-ted with their spacey peers, too! 

Want to catch some more Funny Kid Stories? Click on the Funny Kid Friday tab at the top of the page under my heading. Everybody needs a little funny kid story now and then. It's what keeps teachers going!

Thanks for stopping by! See you next time!

Reading and Writing Love

Five quickies on this almost-to-the-end-of-school Friday. We get out in three weeks. Am I counting the days? Am I counting the minutes?? Thanks Doodle Bugs for the Five for Friday linky. I include a Funny Kid Friday below, too.

1. We wrapped up our Mo Willems unit today. Ya gotta know about Elephant and Piggie, Knuffle Bunny, and Pigeon books, right?? If you don't, go look them up RIGHT NOW. We own several copies of ALL twenty five E&P books (book lingo in my classroom). I save them for the end of the year, not only because they are a happy note to go out on, I mean funny even for adults, but because at this point ALL my kiddos can read them... well, read them after they've heard them, and read them with a partner. And they do love to read them. From the teacher perspective E&P are especially good for teaching dialogue, talk and thought bubbles, reading details in pictures, punctuation... so much. We've made Mo hats to celebrate his unit before, but only with Pigeon. This time all the characters prance across the front with a little directed drawing help.

Mo hats!

To show just how much we connect with Mo and his characters, I share what I found inside one little guy's hat.

Mo love

Cracked me up. I have about seventy Mo books altogether and they were worth every penny of investment. Most are available in paperback now, so they are a bit cheaper than when they first came out. Our school library is well stocked, too, as they fly off the shelves during our unit. Ya GOTTA do Mo if you don't already.

2. When the kiddos have the whole room to choose from at free choice and they choose this, you know something is going right, eh?

They LOVE the window seat!

3. Speaking of books and reading, I am going to be doing a book linky this summer so we can share the book love.

Teachers can share favorite kid books, teacher books, and books they read for pure pleasure. I've started my list already. It's going to run on Tuesdays for twelve weeks from June 6 thru August 22. Please spread the word and remember to stop back here when it starts in less than two weeks now. Keep your eye open for the book button!

4. I found these at Target this week.

Fun, cheap, and LOOK what you can do with them!

They make the CUTEST little first day of school gift for incoming students! I know it is early to be thinking about BACK to school, but you want to do this. I include a letter to students on how to use the wishing star that goes out to incoming families in their school start-up packet. I am especially proud of this idea because although you find great ideas all over the internet, the wishing star came out of my own little head. I happily share it because it brought me big kuddos with my new students and incoming families this past fall.

And people, my resource is FREE! You can read about how I use it by clicking on the family letter below.

Then grab the FREEBIE at my TPT store by clicking on the pack.

5.  We wrapped up a letter writing unit today... not letter, as in alphabet letter, but letter as in written communication. Letter writing for my class is a "bend in the road" mini-unit in writing workshop. In the past I have done this unit earlier in the year, but I found it to be a great end of year unit to do right now, too. The kiddos are getting just a bit nostalgic... if five year olds can get nostalgic... as it slowly sinks in that our year is coming to an end and they are not going to see all their friends over the summer as they do now. We spent the last three weeks writing to all sorts of people, but especially to each other.  The classroom mailbox has taken on new meaning.

For our celebration we played with our food, so to speak. I gave the kids licorice strings and they "wrote" the two most useful words in letter writing– Dear and Fondly. They loved it.

I really relied on my Let's Write to Someone letter writing resource, one of the few products in my TPT store. It helped me remember what I do in this unit, and the anchor charts, stationery and postcard are really helpful. You might check it out if you are looking for a way to refresh writing in your last weeks of school. You can find it by clicking below.

Along with this unit came a little Funny Kid Story I share in closing.

A favorite guest teacher was in our classroom during writing time this last week. Even though she knows our kids well she was rather taken aback when one of the littles asked, "What is the F word?"

She got quite a chuckle when she realized he was after the word Fondly!

Have a great last few weeks, OR congratulations on finishing another successful year of teaching, whatever your case may be.

Click on back to Five for Friday! Thanks, Kacey, for helping us find each other!! And I sure hope that Five for Friday will be back next Fall!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

November's Three Picked Pins

It's time to link up with my favorite Pick 3 Pins Linky. This month I highlight writers' workshop.

I've used the resource ideas from all three of these pins in the last month of school. I bet you've covered these concepts, too, but reviewing with a new anchor chart is always a good idea, so I put them in this post to use in November. Click on the images so you can pin or go to the sites.

My first pick comes from my friend Carolyn at Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together.

Labeling is such a good first step to get kindergarten kids writing with letters. I made an anchor chart like this one with my kiddos to demonstrate labeling.

The second anchor chart I made with the kids was this one.

Hearing the sounds in words is HUGE in kindergarten. We simply cannot practice it enough. This is just one of several ideas I used.  Thanks to Chart Chums for the idea. If you don't have Marjorie and Kristine's book, I suggest you check it out at their blog.

Third for me is this little baby... which is certainly not a baby idea.

Each year I sort of clench my teeth, grin, and get to it. I don't know why the whole partner thing makes me cringe, because once partners are underway it all goes fine. I just need to get over it as a teacher and trust the system- which for my district is the Lucy Calkins' Units of Study. This particular anchor chart highlights a good way to begin with partners, as no writing is involved. Instead the focus is on oral storytelling which is the true first step to writing. This anchor helps the kiddos a lot.  It comes from Nancy at First Grade Wow. I think Nancy gets the distinction of most generous blogger on the web because she has tremendous freebies. Absolutely check her out by clicking on the picture above.

This month I'm adding a bonus fourth pin because I am happy to have found it again just now... you really do need to puruse your own Pin Boards occasionally– eyeroll. I will use this in upcoming days as we focus more on telling the story well. No, my kinders will not be able to write like this, but having this example to use, either printed out or just for me to share orally at this point in the year, will help me teach details. I want to pin it here so I remember it in the next week or two. It comes from Hooty's Homeroom.

The whole pin includes a fourth level in the example.

Eventually when we circle back around to narrative writing in the later part of the year some of my kiddos will be able to use this four star rubric to give a boost to their own writing.

Well, those are my pins for the month. I hope you'll stop by my Pinterest Board by clicking below. I love Pinterest and use it quite a bit. I learn a lot from what others pin, so if you follow me, I'll follow you. Happy Pinning!

Head on back to the Linky Party and find more great ideas. Thanks for stopping by!

An InLinkz Link-up

Think–Talk Sticks and a Freebie Link

Okay, so I'm doing another post for Monday Wednesday Made It! I have little tool that could be useful in many classrooms, and now that Monday Made It is making it's move for the school year to just monthly, I don't want to wait to share. I call them Think–Talk Sticks.

These can be used lots of ways

This idea has two sources. I found it through Betsy Hubbard's post at Two Writing Teachers and she gives credit to Kathy Collins from The Educator Collaborative. Kathy originally used her sticks during reading. She has students place their stick near a character in a picture to talk about what the character might be thinking or saying. Betsy furthered the thinking by applying them to writing workshop. Betsy gives each of her students a stick to hold up when they are formulating their ideas and planning what to write, and then they turn it over when they are ready to share with their partners.

When I read about the sticks being used in these two good ways, I thought of yet another time when they might be useful and that is in group discussions. When I ask a question kids could show they were thinking of their answer, and then when they were ready to share, flip them over. I'm hoping it will increase student engagement by giving kids an action to show on the outside of what's going on inside their head. Some kids are always ready with answers, but others need a bit of help, and this would let students know what the expectation is. I would be able to say, "I see soandso thinking of their answer and I'll watch for him to let me know when he has it." And besides, think-talk sticks are fun and there is good purpose to pulling out a widget every once in a while– remember the brain grooves on novelty.

For all these reasons, I was all about the sticks. Betsy has a freebie sheet of the think and talk balloons– thanks, Betsy! You can simply cut them apart and glue them on either side of a stick. This being the season of extra hands available for cutting and a hot laminator at the ready, I decided to fancy them up a bit.

I happened to have black Post-its on hand, so I stuck the think bubble to the Post-it then laminated. I laminated the talk bubble, too. Hot glue worked well at attaching them to the sticks.

I didn't have any colored sticks at home, so a few seconds with some Sharpies and the sticks had color front and back. I color sticks like this sometimes because I like the uncolored stripe down the edge.

It was a lot of effort in cutting but I'm happy with them in the end. I'm not suggesting you do all this crafting, I sure don't usually when it comes to little sticks. I do encourage you, however, to click on Betsy's bubble page below to read her post and get her freebie. If you don't know about Two Writing Teachers check them out while you're there. This group of educators does a fantastic blog and I hardly ever miss it because I come away with new things to think about every time.

Click to go to Two Writing Teachers for the freebie

I bet if you make some of these you'll not only use them in the ways mentioned her, but in new ways, too. I love teaching tools that can be used over and over to stimulate student thinking. If you don't have time to make them now, Pin! Let me know in the comments what you think.

Trot back to Monday Made It. Find more stuff.

February Pick Three Pins Linky

Happy February! Time for Pawsitively Teaching and Inspired Owl's Corner Pick 3 Linky!  Here are my top three pins that I'll use in the classroom this month.

I guess number one needs to be this video of snowflake making. It is particularly good for early elementary. It shows many snowflake photographs, explains how snowflakes are made and shows them being formed in the lab, and introduces Dr. Libbrecht, a physicist at Caltech and leading expert on snowflakes. It's a must for any discussion or unit on snow. It is one of my most repinned pins, too.

Be sure to check out my Science Video Pin Board. There are all sorts of goodies on there for every kind of science unit. Click on pic to go.

This simple idea lets kids use bingo markers to their heart's content. The pin shows a snowman that is highlighted, but the dot covered paper could be used as a background for art projects or writing pieces. Think how pretty a poem would look mounted on this handmade paper. Keeping this one in my tip bag.

You'll find lots of general art and craft ideas on my Pin Board. I think it is so important to bring arts into our daily life in kindergarten, as well as all the grades. And I can and do find ways to tie it to curriculum and appease the time use monsters, too. Find it by clicking on it.

And last but certainly not least, I found a great use for this editing page. The latest wave in education is the idea of keeping students informed of their learning goals– which ones they mastered and what their next ones are. This sheet will work beautifully for that.

I am going to give each student the page and go through their writing pieces using the checklist to help us focus. When we see evidence that they've met an objective, they will get to draw a smiley face in that checkbox. I know all of my students will get at least one smiley at this point in the year and most will get several more. Then we'll decide together what writing skill they'll focus on next. To remember the chosen target they'll color in that checkbox with a yellow highlighter. They will keep their goal sheets in their notebooks and when we see that they have reached their next target, I'll let them put a smiley face in the highlighted box. Then we'll choose the next one they'll work toward.

For my purposes I am going to white out "Editing" and put "Goal" at the top of the page. It will be important when I first give out the sheet that the kids realize the list is for kindergarten AND first grade, so it is okay if they don't reach all the goals this year. I think it is going to be a very handy list. And did I tell you that it's FREE! Yep. There are lots of other useful pages in the editing pack, too. It comes from Nancy at First Grade W.O.W. Absolutely check it out.

I go to my Writing Pin Board on a regular basis. It is loaded with good ideas to do things in new ways and spice things up. Click on it to go there.

THANKS to Lisa and Marissa for the Pick 3 Pins Linky... they could have made this a Pick 12 Pins Linky, and I'd still be making hard choices. TeeHee Hopefully you clicked on my pin boards, too, to see the other stuff I've come across lately.

That's all for now. I'm off to check out everybody else's top three Pin Picks. Yippee. You can click below to do the same.

An InLinkz Link-up

If You Teach Writing...

Thanks to Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for the Five for Friday linky. I am using it a little bit differently today. I have one great resource to share with any teacher who teaches writing, but I'll share five favorites from it.

There are soooo many blogs out there. Some we only need to see occasionally. Some we follow because we get things– admit it, sometimes the freebie is worth it. And some we follow because we really learn from what they share.

One of the most valuable blogs for me is Two Writing Teachers.

And if you teach writing, you need to know about this resource, too. This blog started out as the blog of just two teachers, but has grown to a team which includes Stacey Shubitz, Anna Gratz Cockerille, Betsy Hubbard, Beth Moore, Dana Murphy, and Tara Smith. I follow them through email so that I get fast notification of their almost daily blog posts. And I never fail to read them. It's like having a chat with a good teacher friend who is a very good teacher– the spark that keeps my teaching flame burning.

They post on a wide variety of topics under the broad heading of writing. It is very much based on Lucy Calkins and Teachers College work, but of course, that work is continually evolving and growing. Here are some of the posts I most value, but to get this down to a sample of just five was pretty much impossible and there is so. much. more.

1. The "Share" Time- a variety of structures for share time to maximize learning and keep it fresh Here

2.  You Just Don't Get It– I loved this post. I added these steps and language to my conferring kit  Here

3.  Back to School– a wonderful, must-have list of information for any time Here
And I'm going to let this be a double click topic. This post, Beginning a Year of Teaching Writing with Reflection, is on the back to school list, but it is worth checking out all on its own. Reflection and goal setting is important at the start of the year, but also good to do throughout the year as well, so I'll be coming back here multiple times. Here

4.  Top Five Lessons to Teach to Writing Partners of All Ages Right Now– okay, so having writing partners in kindergarten is a stumbling block for me. Even though over the years I have seen good things come from kinder partnerships, I need a little kick in the pants to get going each year. This is it Here

5.  Writing in Preschool: Scope and Sequence– I add this for my preschool friends and because I so wish all my kindergarten students came to me with this background! Good food for thought and very appropriate preschool writing activities. Also a downloadable Scope and Sequence chart is on this post Here

Something else that I must mention about Two Writing Teachers is their Slice of Life Story Challenge. Every Tuesday Two Writing Teachers invite you to write on your blog about your life, then post it within their Tuesday "Call for Slices" post. All the details can be found by clicking on the orange logo.

Participating with Slice of Life is a good way to prompt yourself to write and share publicly... well, I THINK it can be a good way to prompt yourself to write. This is another area where I need a kick in the pants, and even more so, a good dose of courage. I write and post on my blog pretty regularly, but this seems bigger, more personal perhaps. And more of a commitment. So... soon. Maybe soon.
Are there any other teacher bloggers out there who would like to take up the writing challenge with me?

I hope you will check out Two Writing Teachers and let me know what you find in the comment section below. I have certainly not been to all their posts and would love to hear what ideas resonate with your writing instruction.

Well, there you have it for this Friday post. I've been writing as I continue to clean up from yesterday, and now I'm off to visit just one or two stores on this Black Friday shopping day. Hoping the crowds will soon head home for dinner ;)  And then we're gonna start the Christmas house trimming. Click on back to Five for Friday to see what others are up to.

The post If You Teach Writing... first appeared on kidpeopleclassroom.com

Student Writers' Wall Makes for Great Display

Happy Wordless Wednesday! Linking up today and thinking about my classroom set-up... 'tis the season, after all. I'm sharing a photo from last year of how I display our student writing.

My Little Corner of the World

This pic was taken outside the door of my classroom, in my corner of the centrum. Through the window is my classroom, which is rather small for kindergarten, so I make every inch count, even those inches outside my door. This corner houses many things. It has a low, round table that we use for center work with parents, and for our listening center. The table is not in the picture, but you see our headphones hanging on the wall for easy kid access. It has my message board, where I post notes from the kids– I encourage writing every way I can. It has my beautiful class sign– so nice to be married to a talented artist. And it has our Writers' Wall.

Our Writers' Wall is where we display our best work from each writing unit and mini-unit we do. For each unit celebration– that oh, so important aspect of writers' workshop– we gather here in a circle and read our work before ceremoniously hanging it on the wall.

The binder clip system allows me to easily put the newest writing pieces on top of the old. Everyone, especially parents, can stop by any time to see their child's work. Keeping all the work together really highlights the progress kids make through the year! Notice I put up a little sign that lists the important objectives we learned in that particular unit. By the end of the year each child has this nicely collected portfolio of their best work in one place. I put it in construction paper folders to send home as treasured keepers.

To set up the binder clip system, I print each child's name on the top of a heavy cardstock sheet. Then I glue down another piece of cardstock on the back, so it covers the top third of the back page. I reinforce it like this so that after I laminate the pages, and make a slit to insert the binder clip, the weight of kids' writing doesn't make the paper rip at the slit. I make a slit, the width of the binder clip with an Xacto, about an inch below the name. I insert the binder clip carefully so the binder clips "wire thingy" that helps you open it is at the back of the paper, and the clip itself is clipped to the top of the slit. It takes a little finagling. I staple each child's display paper securely to the bulletin board. There is then enough leverage when you push on the front "wire thingy" to open the clip, and slide papers up into it, so they hang down in perfect view.

It provides a practical, convenient, and beautiful way to show off our hard work! If this is something you want to try, Pin, Pin, Pin-It :)

How do you display student work?

Thanks Christina for providing us a way to share our ideas! Head on over there by clicking!

The post Student Writers' Wall Makes for Great Display first appeared on kidpeopleclassroom.com