I don’t know about you, but when I used to think about homeschooling high school, it wasn’t just the thought of chemistry labs and calculus that shook my confidence. It was also writing. The thing about Charlotte Mason writing instruction is that most of us can’t intuit how to transition from written narration to the types of writing our children will be asked to do when they are grown. On the one hand, narration is a wonderful training ground for Continue Reading...
One of the trickiest types of characters to get right are children. Learn 8 major tips for how to write child characters that resonate with readers.
Perfect fall ideas for writing. We use these as daily quick writes writing prompts for morning work. After we spend some time working on answering in complete sentences, students are able to write one or two sentences to quickly respond to the prompts. This is meant to be used if September is your SECOND month of school, see the August/September set for the first month of school set up. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ This is for you if September is your second month of school - Interactive Notebook pages now included Click HERE to see the Spanish version Please preview to see if it meets your needs...The AUGUST set is for you if September is your first month. The August set has both August and September so it will work for the first month for everyone - :0) Students get these on Monday and keep them in their writing folders. I collect them on Friday. They keep a writing rubric in their writing folders so they know what I am looking for and what will be graded each month. There’s also a blank form to use in case you want to create your own prompts instead of using the given prompts. Click HERE to see more quick writes - the individual sets have complete previews! Click HERE for UPPER ELEMENTARY Quick Writes ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ CUSTOMER TIPS: How to get TPT credits to use on future purchases Go to your My Purchases page. Beside each purchase you'll see a Provide Feedback button, click it and you will be taken to a page where you can leave a quick rating and a short comment about the product. Why is feedback so important? Each time you provide feedback, you’ll earn TPT credits that can be applied to future purchases to save you money! Plus, the feedback you provide helps me make my products better suit your needs! How To Follow My Store Click the green star beside my name at the top of this page OR at the top of my store page. Following me notifies you when I post a new item and you can get it half off for 24 hours! ©First Grade Fun Times All rights reserved by author. By purchasing this item, you agree you are buying a single classroom/teacher license, which does not include the copyright. This product is to be used by the original purchaser ONLY and is a one classroom license. It may not be posted on a public website where others have access to download it, it may not be resold, donated or given away and it may not be translated into another language and then posted for free or for sale.
I have so much to share with you about writing interventions, but first things first: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW BLOG DESIGN?!?!? Please share your thoughts! Every year, I meet lots of middle schoolers who struggle with writing. And every year, I play around with lots of different interventions to meet their needs. Last year, I made establishing sound writing interventions one of my big goals. I spent lots of time (and money!!) on resources that I could use, and by about March, I had something that I thought I was pretty happy with. This year, I'm starting off with those interventions that worked so well last year and I couldn't be happier with the results! In fact, I'm so pleased with how they are working, I feel confident enough to share my practice with my blog readers. I can say that these are definitely KID TESTED, TEACHER APPROVED!! Creating a Time and Space for Intervention within your Classroom I teach by myself. There are no aides, special ed teachers, BSI teachers... just little, ol' me! So, when I want to create and manage small groups, I'm on my own. This is hard. It would be so much easier if there was another adult in the room to help, but there is not, so I just have to deal! It's work, but it absolutely can be done! A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Power of Bell-Ringers. Establishing a quiet and smooth transition into writing class is a great way to get started, but it also provides me with a window of time where I can pull a small group! By mid-October, my bell-ringer time gets extended to 15 minutes. The kids get started immediately and are clear on the expectations during this time. Now the environment for working with small groups is set: the room is quiet and engaged, allowing me to focus my time on the handful of kids in my group. I pull my kids to a table that I have set up in front of our classroom library. I have a "teacher station" at one end where I do my instruction. I usually stream some jazz or piano music during this time so my group doesn't distract the rest of the class. Establishing Interventions In my district, by middle school, there are no longer district-mandated interventions in place. There are no clear resources for teachers to use or personnel to help. So, when we have a struggling reader or writer in 7th or 8th grade, it's the job of the classroom teacher to meet their needs. In my tenure of working with middle schoolers, I've found that there are two types of students who need more support than my writing curriculum provides (and please remember... I am not a researcher/specialist/writer of books/etc. I'm just a teacher, like you, who loves my job, tries to do the best by my kids, and is compulsively reflective about what I see happening... to me, teachers are the best EXPERTS, but I know that we are hesitant these days to trust a "lowly" teacher and rather find ourselves relying on big publishers and educational researchers to show us best practices... I don't have lots of "data" to support what I'm sharing with you... just my actual observations I've made while working with real, live kids in an average classroom setting!!). Type One: Students Who Struggle with Structure The first type of students who need intervention are those who struggle with structure. These are the kids that can't organize their thoughts in a way a reader could follow. They simply write whatever their brain thinks at the time. They can generally stick with a broad topic, but because they are just writing whatever pops into their head at the time, there are lots of places where their writing veers off track and becomes confusing. Here is an example written by a former student struggling with structure: My dog Henry is my most special treasure. He is always there for me whenever I need him in sad times and happy. In many ways, he's my best friend. He has brown fur and a white chest. He is such a good dog to have around when you are sad because he always knows just how to cheer you up. His eyes are brown, like a Hersey bar. His favorite toy is a yellow tennis ball. Once he almost got hit by a car chasing the ball down the street. I have loved him ever since he was a puppy and we first got him. I was only 4-years old when that little ball of fluff was brought home by my parents to be best friends. His soft fur is always so smooth and warm when you pet him while watching TV on a cold night. He is my best friend and that is why he is my special treasure [sic]. This student is clear about his topic - his dog, Henry - but he cannot organize his thoughts. He is thinking about his dog and writes down everything he knows about his buddy exactly as it comes to his mind. Clearly, he has mechanical and conventional skills, and you can see evidence of where he is practicing what we learned in our mini-lessons and from studying our mentor pieces. But, because there is no organization, it is too difficult to follow and all of the skills he has are lost to the untrained, teacher-eye. Kids who write like this need an intervention that focuses on structure and organization. Typically, I LOATHE teaching step-by-step process writing, but in cases like this, I'm left with little choice. The lessons that I put together for kids in need of this intervention consist of learning how to write a well-organized paragraph. Together, we will work on writing topic sentences, creating strong and clear supporting sentences, and finish up with writing a closing that sticks with our reader. My favorite plans for this type of writing come from Michael Friermood. His Fact-Based Opinion Writing products are geared toward teaching elementary students (grades 3-5) how to write a good opinion paragraph, and they are PERFECT for my struggling 7th graders. They also lack a lot of the "cutesy" images that you find with products for this age group, so my big kids don't feel like I'm making them do "baby stuff." (I do not use the stationary he provides for the final writing piece... it's adorable, but it would be pushing in with my kids! So, we just do our paragraph writing in our intervention notebooks!) My plan is to pull the intervention group for one week (at 15 minutes a pop, this comes to 1 1/4 hours of learning). Long before I ever pull a group, I work hard to make sure that my lesson is broken down into five succinct 15-minute increments. Since time is so precious, you need to make sure not one minute is wasted! I can say that it takes me much longer to plan for a small-group lesson than a 50-minute whole-class lesson because efficiency is so crucial. The first few times you plan a small-group lesson, don't be surprised if your timing is mess. It definitely takes practice to be an effective small-group instructor! After their week is up, then I send them back to completing the bell-ringer at the start of class. I will watch them closely and conference with them lots to make sure that I am seeing a transfer of skills. If I don't, then it is likely that I will put them back in an intervention group in a few weeks to practice again. This intervention model will continue all year. Right now, I have 8 intervention students in one writing class, and 6 in another. By the end of the year, those number should reduce to 3-4 and 2-3. Never in all my years of working with small groups, have I had 100% of my intervention students "graduate" from small group. Don't be frustrated if this is the case! If you can improve 50-60% of those kids, then consider that a huge success!! Type Two: Students Who Struggle with Motivation The next group of kids that I work with are those who struggle with motivation. These are the students who complain a lot about not having anything to write about, spend more time doodling or coloring in their notebook than writing, and who will write the absolute bare minimum for any writing assignment. Many times, these kids produce too little for me to gauge whether or not they also need help with structure. But typically, once I can get them writing, they will likely find themselves in a small group for structure work :) Come October, after we've spent lots of lots of time list writing, the kids who are still struggling to get their pencils moving find themselves using a very special Interactive Writer's Notebook called "Musings from a Middle Schooler." This product contains loads of interactive writing pages that will motivate even the most reluctant writers. The pages can be printed out and glued into a marble notebook. (Most often, I'll have the kids create their own... I don't always have them use all the pages, rather I let them pick and choose the ones they like!). Cover Table of Contents page Table of Contents cont. and an "All About Me" page "My Life Story in Two Pages" My Favorite Thing Comics I created this project just last school year and it's been an absolute smash! The kids (especially my boys!) LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! In absolutely no time, they are writing like crazy. And once I can get their pencils moving it doesn't take me long to get them producing some actual pieces. I don't necessarily pull these kids and work with them in a small group. The first few days, we will assemble our books all together at the back table, but then they go right back to the big group. Rather than do the bell-ringer with the rest of the class at the start of the period, they will work in their "Musings" notebooks. Fifteen minutes of that is usually enough to get them into writing mode for the rest of class. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * So, that's how I make writing intervention work in my classroom. Phew!! That was long, folks!! I apologize for my wordiness and I am grateful if you stuck it out until the end! Also, I'm sure that I've left out some crucial details of my practice, so please do not hesitate to ask me any questions you still have! Do you have any good intervention tips or strategies that work for you? I'd love to hear about them. Drop me a comment and share! Happy Teaching!!
We've begun writing in our third grade classroom and to my delight, my students are way into it! We have set up our writing notebooks and w...
Help your students expand their writing skills with these teaching ideas on writing a paragraph before they need to know how to write a multi-paragraph.
Hello! I’m dropping by to share something I started doing that is saving me tons of time, not to mention paper! I have been teaching for nine years, and something I have always dreaded was stapling rubrics onto my students’ writing. I was wasting so much time and paper copying these things and stapling them ... Read More about Time Saving Writing Templates with Embedded Rubrics!
I’ve been spending some serious amounts of time this summer leading conversations around the country focused on the integration of social studies and literacy. And for the last few years, I…
Learn about the brain and create your very own printable brain hemisphere hat perfect for a human body and brain study.
LEARN TO WRITE YOUR NAME It is so exciting when children become curious about how to write their name. I believe teaching them to write their name should be the first word they learn how to spell . It is personal, concrete and helps them realize that putting letters together in writing has me
If you've read my blog or bought any of my writing products from TpT, then you know that I am a huge fan of the Read-Around-Group. I love when kids read each other's writing and
A clever classroom trick to help children learning to write inside lines
easy to use Kindergarten Writing Workshop Units that include writing prompts, ideas and activities for beginning writing throughout Kindergarten
Analyzing writing curriculums, planning writing workshop and teaching writing lessons can be overwhelming. You might think, how am I going to fit everything in and produce successful writers? Where do I start? What skills do they need? This post will share the 7 BASIC WRITING LESSONS that every teacher should teach! With this basic knowledge, students will be able to perform other writing assignments more effectively. The following skills are not only effective in upper elementary, they are often needed at the middle school level for review or the primary level for differentiation. So yes, every teacher should teach them! If you start with these 7 fundamental skills, it will set the expectations for your writing lessons and assignments throughout the year! Frequently Asked Questions What are the basic skills and what order should I teach them? Sentence Structure 1. Complete Sentences Lesson for complete sentences 2. Fragments Lesson for fragments 3. Run-ons Lesson for run-ons Paragraph Writing 4. Topic Sentences Lesson for topic sentences 5. Relevant Details Lesson for relevant details 6. Transition Words Lesson for transition words 7. Closing Sentences Lesson for closing sentences How much time should I dedicate to teaching these fundamental skills? I recommend one day for each skill. If you spend a whole writing block for each skill, students will benefit from the practice. How do I teach each skill? First: Start with an anchor chart explaining the skill. (See each lesson link above for effective anchor charts.) Second: Provide examples. Students can share examples too! Next: Students should take notes. I love using Interactive Writing Notebooks to take notes. Research supports the use of interactive notebooks through studies on multiple intelligences, the brain and note taking. Here are a few videos to Set Up Interactive Writing Notebooks. Click photo for the Upper Elementary Version. A Primary Version is also available. Then: Identify the skill. Provide practice sheets and task cards for students to practice identifying the skill in sentences and paragraphs. Last: Apply the skill. Students should have the opportunity to write their own sentence or paragraph to apply the particular skill. What if I can't fit the lesson in one writing block? If you can't extend the days to complete them, there are other ways to get the whole lesson in. You can put practice sheets or task cards in a center, or you can have students apply the skill for homework or morning work the next day. What if my students, some of my students, or absent students can't do interactive notebooks? Make a small anchor chart to put in their notebooks with the same information! If you don't have a printable poster, take a picture of the anchor chart you used in class and print them off! I hope you found this post helpful and your students become successful writers this year! Connect With Me! TPT Store Facebook Pinterest My Blog
20 Free Name Activities for the First Week of Kindergarten. Check out these amazing hands-on and fun name activities! Integrates multiple skills.
Pour aider Léo à mieux maîtriser ses crayons et faire de moins en moins de gribouillage j'ai trouvé ces fiches de graphisme sur internet pour les 3-4 ans. Je lui ai présenté la première comme un jeu : aider le pirate à retrouver le trésor en lui montrant...
" Writing Picture Prompts~ These picture prompts naturally differentiate your writing center. Each page has key vocabulary to support kindergarten, first and second grade writers. These are a perfect addition to your work on writing center!"
Download free Dolch sight words worksheets for pre-k or pre-primer. Learn to recognise sight words.
Happy Mother's Day to all you mommies out there! I hope your day is filled with love and relaxation. Each and everyone of you deserves it! I am getting ready to spend the day with my boys at one of my favorite places- Santa Barbara! Brunch + the beach= one happy Mom! I can't wait to share pics with you later on. But first, I have some exciting news: It's hard to believe I started this amazing journey into the blogging world one year ago today! I have been incredibly blessed this last year. I have connected and formed friendships with so many of you. I have been able to share my teaching adventures and ramble about my crazy ideas- and you all have supported me. I can't thank you enough! If you can't tell, I have been looking forward to this milestone and wanted to make it meaningful and special. In order to help celebrate this milestone, I have asked ten of my dear blogging friends to help spread the cheer. They have all touched my life in different ways. Some have helped answer my silly blogging questions, others have inspired me with their own blogs and all of them are supporters of my journey. They are a few special pieces of my blogging journey puzzle! A party, wouldn't be a party without a party favor. I created a little something for each of you to take with you, as a way of saying thank you for being a follower. Make sure to enter the giveaway and before you leave, grab your FREEBIE! Now it is your turn to join in the fun and celebrate with me! This giveaway will run for one week. I will announce the winner next Sunday! Good luck! Here are all the items you can win: a Rafflecopter giveaway Now that you have followed some of my favorite blogging friends, here is your prize! I created a little packet called A Day at the Beach Multiplication Activities to help you bring a bit of summer into your classroom, all while helping your kiddos review their multiplication skills. It includes a flap book and two array review sheets. Just click on the picture to download it now. Thanks for helping me celebrate my first blogiversary and Happy Mother's Day!
Make October Magical with these adorable October Preschool Worksheets - Fun Halloween themes to practice counting, alphabet letters, and much more.
Check out these six writing improvement exercises and ideas you can share with your child to get them on their way to improved writing skills. Enjoy!
Cultivating a postive classroom community is such an important part of teaching, and I've learned that little things go a long way. The Best Part of Me writing activity is a great community builder!
A curriculum developer and teacher who designs lessons & activities to teach common core standards in language arts,math & classroom management.
This back to school "snowball" fight activity will have your students getting up and out of their seats moving around the room to get to know each other.
Use Mentor Sentences in your ELA middle school classroom to improve student writing! Find practical ideas to teach writing skills.
Toiminnallisessa harjoituksessa oppilas tutustuu vieraan kielen tekstiin ja saa paljon toistoa sanojen ja lauseiden harjoittelussa.
Happy Saturday everyone! Today, I wanted to share a new writing rubric that I created with my students this week for their personal narratives/stories. I don't know about you, but my students always have a hard time assessing their own writing. Plus, I always have such a hard time grading it (I always procrastinate with grading writing for this very reason!) because it can be so subjective to grade. Over the years, I've learned the answer to these two issues- RUBRICS! Rubrics are such a great way to help your students learn to assess and judge the quality of their own writing. The best part of using rubrics is that my students help to make them, so they take ownership of them which in turn makes them more meaningful to the kids. Each day this week, we looked at different 2nd grade writing samples (from other classes) and judged the writing in each area on the rubric. As we judged them, I helped the kids write the criteria for each section on the rubric. We found that using the words ALL of the time, MOST of the time, SOME of the time, and NONE of the time were easy to use for a 4, 3, 2, 1. Here is the completed rubric if you'd like to download it and use in your classroom! Comparing it to a cheeseburger was a fun way to help my students understand the difference between a 4, 3, 2, and 1. We talked about how a 4 is like a deluxe cheeseburger with all of the toppings- it can't get any better! A 3 is a complete cheeseburger but is missing some of those yummy details. A 2 is a burger with just a bottom bun- there is a lot missing! A 1 is just a bottom bun- no one wants to eat this because it's no good at all! What are some ways that you use rubrics in your classroom? I'm linking this up with Heather at Peacocks and Penguins- be sure to check out her linky for some great ideas! Have a great weekend!
10 reasons to teach Wonder the book by R.J. Palacio to your students. It's an amazing story you'll love! Plus Wonder Book Quotes to live...
Okay--I think I have admitted this before but here I go again, I dislike teaching writing. {Gasp!} I know, shame on me. Such an important part of a day in the life of a first grader. I'm contributing my dislike of writing to not be such a great writer myself growing up. One of my .unstated. resolution's was to become a better writing teacher. Well, let me tell you...this week I have jumped right in! Seems like I just hadn't found a way(in the past) that fit me or my students. While I was going through my writing folder desperately searching for ideas, I found a sheet that gave me inspiration and my writing lessons were brought to fruition! We started off this week talking about "story starters" and how important it was to catch your readers attention in the first sentence or two of your story. The anchor chart *fanatic* that I am made this: Here are the books I used that had great beginnings to show examples of interesting ways to start a story. The next day we picked a character to write our story about and described it using my 'Describe a Snowman' bubble map. I told them I wanted them to use their imagination and be creative. I showed them a few different type of snowmen (from clipart I found) to get their little wheels spinning. Their creativity came to life and describing is what they did! Our next step was to talk about the parts of a story: beginning, middle, end. We discussed these concepts: Beginning=story starter, character and setting introduction. Middle=give your character a problem. Ending=solve the problem and end the story. They caught onto this SOOOOO much better than I ever imagined! I created a worksheet for them to record their thoughts. After completion, we talked about the AND Disease! They thought this was HILARIOUS!!! I wrote and example of something like this on the board: When I read it they {laughed and laughed and laughed}! They thought I was crazy for using the word AND so many times. They were surprised when I told them that --they-- were actually the ones who were consumed by this disease! I had them go back and edit their papers for the "and disease", capitalization and puncuation. Our final day of writing consisted of completing our final draft. I had them transfer their edited writing and complete it by drawing a picture. I was in ~AWE~ after reading most of their stories....had I really taught them step by step with my own ideas!? Heck yes, I felt like I had hit the jackpot!! We will be at it again this week creating a penguin story to go along with our penguin unit! I'm hoping the process will be a little bit more independent (fingers-crossed)! This teacher is all smiles : ) P.S. If you made it this far, you can click on all the above templates and pick them up in my TpT store for FREE!
K-1 NONFICTION WRITING My nonfiction writing unit is here! This is the perfect way to introduce kindergarten and first grade students to what informational writing is. This unit is so engaging for students because it uses real life photographs and animals. We discus
