Writing at the beginning of the year in kindergarten is all about building confidence. The kids have to see themselves as writers - even when that just means drawing pictures or writing squiggles. It can feel like a slow start, but it's so important that as we develop these tiny writers, we take our time to build them up step by step. I start early in the year by introducing the structure and purpose of our writer's workshop. Kids learn what and why writers write with an emphasis on the fact that THEY ARE WRITERS! They learn the structure of our writer's workshop. Each day, writer's workshop consists of a minilesson, writing time, and sharing time. During the minilesson, we look closely at a mentor text or writing example to learn a particular strategy. The teacher models and guides students through practice, then releases them for writing time. The number one rule of writing time is that students are working the entire time. The teacher can take this time to do individual or small group writing conferences. Finally, comes share time, where students share their work with one another and the teacher can highlight some things that went well. My writers use writing binders to store their work and to hold reference materials. They can decorate their own cover, then slip it inside the front of the binder. Inside the binder, we have charts, posters, and checklists that students can use to aid their writing. They are placed in plastic sheet protectors to keep them in good shape for the whole year. In the left pocket of the binder, students will keep works in progress. When they have finished a piece, it moves over to the right pocket of their binder. Students can always access these "finished" pieces and add more to them! To kick off our writer's workshop, the kids learn the process they will follow for writing in Kindergarten. I emphasize four steps - think, draw, label, and write. I leave this anchor chart or a smaller poster up in the room all year long. Also, toward the end of the year, we start working on revising by adding detail to their pictures and words. We start the writing process with thinking. Students brainstorm a list of topics that are of interest to them - things they love and things they know a lot about. These will serve as inspiration for their stories! Students learn that before they can write, they have to think of a story. We practice this with oral storytelling. Students practice sharing opinions, facts, and narratives out loud to their peers. They learn the importance of including details in their stories AND learn some crucial speaking and listening skills which are so important to emphasize at the beginning of the year. The motto we take on for oral storytelling is LOUD AND PROUD! This teaches students that their stories matter! After learning to think of and tell a story, students get their first practice of putting their story down on paper - through pictures! Before I ever ask students to write a story, I teach them to tell their story through drawings. They learn to draw the who, what, when, and where of their stories. They learn to convey emotion through faces and colors in their drawings. They learn that their drawings represent their thoughts and are just as important as words. Here's a chart we make to teach students to put their best effort forward in their drawings. They learn to color using appropriate colors, in the lines, and to fill up all the white space. We leave the poster up all year long and remind students often to make three star pictures. After students have practiced thinking, telling, and drawing their stories, we start to dabble in writing. A good place to start is with one word labels. Students learn that labels help tell their story by telling what something is. It's a great way to ease into inventive spelling and letter-sound correspondence without overwhelming. We learn how to stretch out words by saying them slow like a turtle, listening for the sounds, then writing the letters that represent those sounds. We practice labeling many ways before asking students to label their own drawings. Remember, students will be at a different place in their writing journey! Many of your students will be able to point and tell you what their label says, despite it being a squiggle or a random string of letters. Other students will produce the letter that represents the beginning sound of their word, some will get the beginning and ending sounds. What's important is that their writing is validated and that you are CONSTANTLY modeling phonemic spelling and asking for students to engage in phonemic spelling with you! We do a LOT of shared writing outside of workshop time, too. Finally, it's time for students to practice crafting sentences. It is still very early in the year and these beginning writing experiences are introductory - allowing students to view themselves as writers and get their toes wet. All of these strategies and rules they have learned in these five weeks will be elaborated on throughout the year in their genre writing and reinforced through shared writing experiences and independent practice. As students are learning about writing sentences in writing, they are also learning to read sentences in reading! They are learning the difference between letters, words, and sentences among other important concepts of print. ALWAYS do your best to connect across the curriculum. When my students are learning to write a sentence, they learn that if they can think it, they can say it, and if they can say it, they can write it. Writing is NOT a silent time in my classroom. Students are whispering words, stretching sounds, repeating, and rereading! This is what writing in action looks and sounds like! We go through introductory lessons on using the word wall, spacing words with finger spaces, starting with capital letters, ending with punctuation, and there is SO SO SO much modeling. In the end, students are crafting simple sentences which THEY can read and that match their labeled pictures! I cannot emphasize this enough... the most important thing for students to learn at the beginning of the year is that they ARE writers and they have stories worth sharing. Ignite that fire and you will see tremendous growth throughout the year. And there is absolutely nothing better, nothing that makes this kindergarten heart smile bigger, than the pride on my little writers' faces when they are sharing their work! Everything I talked about in this post is available in my Beginning Writing unit. It can all be adapted for first grade just by digging a little deeper and stretching a little further. It's also available in my Writers' Workshop Bundle (which also includes units on opinion, informational, personal narrative, and how-to writing!) Click the images below to check them out! Grab the alphabet chart from this set for FREE! Color or b/w! Print it as is and put in kids' writing binders. And you can even blow it up using print settings and create a large anchor chart to hang in the room. Just click the image below to download!
This blog post will walk you through what writer's workshop should look like in kindergarten or 1st grade and show you an ideal writing workshop schedule.
These kindergarten writer's workshop tips will help push and engage young writers all year long and are simple to implement in any classroom.
Writing at the beginning of the year in kindergarten is all about building confidence. The kids have to see themselves as writers - even when that just means drawing pictures or writing squiggles. It can feel like a slow start, but it's so important that as we develop these tiny writers, we take our time to build them up step by step. I start early in the year by introducing the structure and purpose of our writer's workshop. Kids learn what and why writers write with an emphasis on the fact that THEY ARE WRITERS! They learn the structure of our writer's workshop. Each day, writer's workshop consists of a minilesson, writing time, and sharing time. During the minilesson, we look closely at a mentor text or writing example to learn a particular strategy. The teacher models and guides students through practice, then releases them for writing time. The number one rule of writing time is that students are working the entire time. The teacher can take this time to do individual or small group writing conferences. Finally, comes share time, where students share their work with one another and the teacher can highlight some things that went well. My writers use writing binders to store their work and to hold reference materials. They can decorate their own cover, then slip it inside the front of the binder. Inside the binder, we have charts, posters, and checklists that students can use to aid their writing. They are placed in plastic sheet protectors to keep them in good shape for the whole year. In the left pocket of the binder, students will keep works in progress. When they have finished a piece, it moves over to the right pocket of their binder. Students can always access these "finished" pieces and add more to them! To kick off our writer's workshop, the kids learn the process they will follow for writing in Kindergarten. I emphasize four steps - think, draw, label, and write. I leave this anchor chart or a smaller poster up in the room all year long. Also, toward the end of the year, we start working on revising by adding detail to their pictures and words. We start the writing process with thinking. Students brainstorm a list of topics that are of interest to them - things they love and things they know a lot about. These will serve as inspiration for their stories! Students learn that before they can write, they have to think of a story. We practice this with oral storytelling. Students practice sharing opinions, facts, and narratives out loud to their peers. They learn the importance of including details in their stories AND learn some crucial speaking and listening skills which are so important to emphasize at the beginning of the year. The motto we take on for oral storytelling is LOUD AND PROUD! This teaches students that their stories matter! After learning to think of and tell a story, students get their first practice of putting their story down on paper - through pictures! Before I ever ask students to write a story, I teach them to tell their story through drawings. They learn to draw the who, what, when, and where of their stories. They learn to convey emotion through faces and colors in their drawings. They learn that their drawings represent their thoughts and are just as important as words. Here's a chart we make to teach students to put their best effort forward in their drawings. They learn to color using appropriate colors, in the lines, and to fill up all the white space. We leave the poster up all year long and remind students often to make three star pictures. After students have practiced thinking, telling, and drawing their stories, we start to dabble in writing. A good place to start is with one word labels. Students learn that labels help tell their story by telling what something is. It's a great way to ease into inventive spelling and letter-sound correspondence without overwhelming. We learn how to stretch out words by saying them slow like a turtle, listening for the sounds, then writing the letters that represent those sounds. We practice labeling many ways before asking students to label their own drawings. Remember, students will be at a different place in their writing journey! Many of your students will be able to point and tell you what their label says, despite it being a squiggle or a random string of letters. Other students will produce the letter that represents the beginning sound of their word, some will get the beginning and ending sounds. What's important is that their writing is validated and that you are CONSTANTLY modeling phonemic spelling and asking for students to engage in phonemic spelling with you! We do a LOT of shared writing outside of workshop time, too. Finally, it's time for students to practice crafting sentences. It is still very early in the year and these beginning writing experiences are introductory - allowing students to view themselves as writers and get their toes wet. All of these strategies and rules they have learned in these five weeks will be elaborated on throughout the year in their genre writing and reinforced through shared writing experiences and independent practice. As students are learning about writing sentences in writing, they are also learning to read sentences in reading! They are learning the difference between letters, words, and sentences among other important concepts of print. ALWAYS do your best to connect across the curriculum. When my students are learning to write a sentence, they learn that if they can think it, they can say it, and if they can say it, they can write it. Writing is NOT a silent time in my classroom. Students are whispering words, stretching sounds, repeating, and rereading! This is what writing in action looks and sounds like! We go through introductory lessons on using the word wall, spacing words with finger spaces, starting with capital letters, ending with punctuation, and there is SO SO SO much modeling. In the end, students are crafting simple sentences which THEY can read and that match their labeled pictures! I cannot emphasize this enough... the most important thing for students to learn at the beginning of the year is that they ARE writers and they have stories worth sharing. Ignite that fire and you will see tremendous growth throughout the year. And there is absolutely nothing better, nothing that makes this kindergarten heart smile bigger, than the pride on my little writers' faces when they are sharing their work! Everything I talked about in this post is available in my Beginning Writing unit. It can all be adapted for first grade just by digging a little deeper and stretching a little further. It's also available in my Writers' Workshop Bundle (which also includes units on opinion, informational, personal narrative, and how-to writing!) Click the images below to check them out! Grab the alphabet chart from this set for FREE! Color or b/w! Print it as is and put in kids' writing binders. And you can even blow it up using print settings and create a large anchor chart to hang in the room. Just click the image below to download!
Writing in kindergarten has the potential to be so much more than handwriting exercises. The best kept secret to kindergarten writing is writers' workshop.
easy to use Kindergarten Writing Workshop Units that include writing prompts, ideas and activities for beginning writing throughout Kindergarten
K-1 WRITING UNIT 4 This is such a fun writing unit to teach! In Unit 4 of my K-1 writing series , we are tackling “How-To” writing pieces, and my kiddos love it when I tell them they get to be the teacher. I say, “You get to teach me! You have to write and tell me how to do something!”
Build writing confidence, as your students take ownership of the writing process, with these FREE personal sound walls and writing folders!
Teaching writing in kindergarten can be one of the most challenging aspects of teaching. In fact, this is the biggest struggle for many teachers in my
It's week three! Week three involves the next step of the writing process, the story elements, and hopefully your little learners are getting closer to writing a story! Continue With Mentor Texts I mentioned mentor texts in my last post about prewriting planning. I continue using mentor texts at this point in the writing process.
Make your writing mini-lessons for the year successful! Follow a writer’s workshop lesson from beginning to end. Monthly writing lessons for Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade.
A collaborative blog where two friends share great ideas, activities, and resources about teaching, coaching, and tutoring in the primary grades!
If you need a writing anchor chart to help your students with visual references, this post has 9 must-make anchor charts to boost your writers.
In this blog post: Thinking about setting up a writing center in your classroom? Find the best Kindergarten writing center ideas and activities for here. The writing center has long been one of my favorite literacy centers for Kindergarten. It’s easy to set up, easy(ish) to manage, and students absolutely LOVE going there! If you […]
Here's a list of reasonable writing goals for kindergarten. Choose goals based on what you've taught. Take your individual child into consideration.
A collection of math and literacy FREEBIES for pre-k through first grade! Books, games, centers, activities and more! FREEBIES!
Wondering how to teach how to writing? These easy steps include writing workshop prompts & topics perfect for kindergarten & 1st grade kids.
These are my favorite, and most effective, ways of teaching writing to elementary students. You may decide that teaching writing is
Informational writing lessons, printable writing paper, posters, graphic organizers for planning, writing rubrics, and more for Kindergarten students! This 4 to 5-week unit will help you teach your students to write nonfiction / all about books!The lessons begin by having students write nonfiction / informational books about topics they know well. Then, students work with you to complete a class research project. Students learn how to create a table of contents and page headings to organize their writing. The unit concludes with a simple partner research project in which students collaborate to write books about an animal.This unit is designed to be taught during the second half of kindergarten but can be taught in the first half if you have very strong readers and writers in your class.Here’s what the unit includes:- 20 clear, detailed minilessons (that tell you what to say and do)- Tips for structuring the writer's workshop- Printable writing paper- Common Core alignment- Rubrics and checklists- Printable posters and alphabet chart- Graphic organizersCommon Core alignment is included, but many classrooms that do not follow the Common Core Standards still use this unit. This unit is part of a yearlong curriculum (7 units total). CLICK HERE to view the complete curriculum. Please contact Alison at [email protected] if you have any questions about the materials!
Teaching writing in kindergarten starts on day one and is a major focus every day. Writing involves a variety of different skills.
Are you looking for Writing lesson or bulletin board ideas? These no prep writing crafts are ideal for your literacy lessons!
Writing can be hard for kids, especially in kindergarten and first grade. These strategies for supporting struggling writers can help!
Are you ready to start using a writing workshop in your class? Here are some tips to getting started, organizing lessons, and managing a workshop effectively.
Writing at the beginning of the year in kindergarten is all about building confidence. The kids have to see themselves as writers - even w...
Use picture books personification examples as mentor texts for your writing workshop in the classroom at home to introduce figurative language.
If you need a writing anchor chart to help your students with visual references, this post has 9 must-make anchor charts to boost your writers.
This free printable Fall Find It Writing Center for Kindergarten is a fun way to get your students moving, reading, and coloring all at the same time!
PRIMARY WRITING - UNIT 3 I am so excited to teach this narrative writing unit! This writing curriculum is geared for kindergarten, first grade and can even be used in second grade classrooms. In Unit 3 , we are learning how to write a personal narrative . We practice writing about what we l
Interactive writing is essential for strong writers in Kindergarten. Learn how you can add interactive writing into your sight words and phonics lessons.
I have a special love for teaching writing! It's definitely a challenge, but it's one that I enjoy greatly. And having a balanced literacy classroom makes writing even more enjoyable. Anytime I start a new writing unit, I open it up with a good book. That book then leads to a fun pre-writing activity. And
Procedural writing or "How-to" is one of my favorite units! Read this post to discover some fantastic mentor texts to use in your classroom!
Teacher Truth- I used to despise teaching Writer's Workshop. I understood the structure of the workshop model and the focus of each grading period, however, I didn't really know WHAT to teach each day during my mini-lessons. Fast forward a couple of years, and I had an amazing opportunity to visit an amazing teacher's classroom and observe her in action and I fell in love with her writing instruction! And then the next year, my amazing team and I decided to each tackle one subject and share our plans. I chose writing (even though it still wasn't my favorite) so I could spend more time learning about teaching writing and *hopefully* fall in love. It worked! Now that I LOVE writing, I wanted to share what I currently do to launch Writer's Workshop! I've taken pieces from what I love from different resources to make what works for me and my students. This post is a little peek into my mini-lessons, anchor charts, and mentor texts that I love! I posted them in the order that I usually teach each lesson, however you can change them around to make it work for you and your group of writers! For each lesson I shared an example of an anchor chart! In my classroom, I always prepped the anchor charts with the title and an image first, but added the content WITH my students during the mini-lesson! The books that I have posted are linked to my Amazon affiliate store. If you purchase them through the link, I will receive a small commission! This might just be one of the most important lessons to launch Writer's Workshop because it explains exactly what it is and what students can expect from their teacher and their own expectations. This is always the very first lesson that I teach when beginning Writer's Workshop and I love using the pie chart as a great visual! I begin this mini lesson using the book Arthur Writes a Story to get my little writers thinking about writing! After we complete the large anchor chart together, my students completed their own mini-anchor chart to glue in their writer's notebooks! I love using these mini-anchor charts because my students can reference them at anytime, even if the large anchor chart is not visible in our classroom anymore! After this lesson, I continue to follow this model for our writing instruction each and everyday! The independent writing time is always the most important and longest part of our writing time! For the next mini-lesson, we discuss WHAT writers actually write! Some groups do a great job at brainstorming different types of writing, while others need a little push! This would be a great mini-lesson to bring out different types of writing to show your little writers! Think cookbooks, Christmas cards, printed e-mails, grocery lists, newspapers, magazines, etc. You can put all these items in a basket to have your writers explore independently, or pull them out while you are making your list as a class! After creating a list as a class, students can either create their own list OR they can simply glue in a similar list into their writer's notebooks or folders! This is another important mini-lesson! It really allows your little writers to think about WHY writers write and why they should write! I love using the book Author A True Story by Helen Lester because it is a story from an author's point of view and allows writers to hear why an actual author chose to write! In my experience, sometimes writers have a difficult time determining WHY they write and might need some guidance to brainstorm ideas for the anchor chart! This particular mini-lesson sets up your expectations for HOW students behave during Writer's Workshop. Using the book Ralph Tells a Story, you can show students what not to do during writing time. This really allows them to brainstorm ideas of what they should be doing during writing! I always teach this lesson right after the {What Good Writers Do} lesson because it always focuses on writing behaviors. For this particular lesson, I reference back to Ralph Tells a Story to help my writers determine what writing should look like, sound like, and feel like in our classroom! For this mini-lesson, I always ask my writers what our classroom would look like, sound like, and feel like if one of our administrators walked into our classroom during writing time. Depending on your class and group of writers, you could complete this in one lesson or split it up into three different lessons! This particular mini-lesson discusses the tools that writers need in order to write. I'm going to be honest, if I'm struggling with time this is probably the first lesson that I would cut out because you could also discuss it in the What Good Writers Do mini-lesson. But, this is a good lesson to go over all the tools that your students can use in your classroom and your expectations for using them. Writing journals or folders? Pencils, erasers, pens for editing? Extra graphic organizers, writing pages? Writing prompts? Word wall or personal dictionaries? There are TONS of writing tools for the writers in your classroom! It's really important to talk about your expectations and even discuss with your writers how they should set up their writing journal or folder! It's common for little writers to not able to keep their belongings organized, so this is a great lesson to really focus on that! Using the book The Day the Crayons Quit is a fun book to use for this lesson because you talk about what would happen if you didn't have access to certain writing tools! "Mrs. Dills, I'm done!" If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that statement, I would probably own my own island! I don't know what it is, but at the beginnin writers always think they are completely finished as soon as they finish with one writing piece! This anchor chart stays up in my classroom for a very long time and I reference it A LOT! This book is a great story to read for this mini-lesson because they are SUPER short stories and allows you to discuss how writers could add lots of details to complete their story!. Then, you could discuss what else writers could do when they think they are done! Because of course, they've really just begun! In my first and second grade classroom, it was very common for my writers to freeze when they couldn't spell a word correctly- especially at the beginning of the year! Some would ask how to spell the word and some would just sit there and not write anything else! This mini-lesson really focuses on stretching out their words the best that they can instead of focusing on spelling the word perfectly. For this mini-lesson, I don't read a mentor text but instead I really focus on modeling how to stretch out words by listening for each sound and then writing them down. I go over each step with the students and then model writing my own story using this strategy. There are times that my writers still have a difficult time stretching out words for their writing, so during this lesson I also give them a personal dictionary. I didn't have a word wall in my classroom, but instead each of my students received a personal dictionary to keep in their desks. I like printing this 2 pages to a sheet and allowing them to keep it in a pocket in the back of their writing journals or folder! And FINALLY, it's time to really dig into story writing! I absolutely LOVE hearing from my little story tellers and I really look forward to teaching them HOW to write a story! This can definitely be broken into multiple days if you want to focus on modeling each step! However, it can easily be taught in one lesson! A Squiggly Story is such a fun little book about a little boy that is learning how to express himself, just like your writers as they learn how to write a story! This is another important anchor chart that I refer back to a lot during my writing instruction. A lot of times writers want to skip right to the writing part, but it's important for them to realize that there is a process! This is a great introductory lesson to the writing process for your little learners! I model this a lot in my classroom! This lesson really focuses on allowing students to come up with their own ideas for writing. I teach this after the {How to Write a Story} lesson because then I can really focus in on the first point, which is thinking of an idea! I like to reference the book Ralph Tells a Story again because the character in that book really struggled with thinking of an idea to write. The character in The Best Story has a similar problem, but she figures out that she should write from her heart! After reading the book, we talk about what is in our heart. Then, we talk about maps and their purpose. It would be really great to show students a picture of an actual map during this lesson! Then, I begin creating my own heart map and have students create their heart maps to keep in their writing journals to use throughout the year! Oh my goodness! I always, always, always have writers that get stuck or frozen and just don't know what to do! Stuck is the cutest book about a little boy whose kite gets stuck in a tree and he is determined to get it out! For this mini-lesson, I really like having my students brainstorm ideas for what they can do when they get stuck during writing time! So the anchor chart will look different each year because it really depends on the ideas that the group comes up with! Then, during independent writing time my students get to practice using those ideas if they get stuck! This might be one of my FAVORITE writing mini-lessons, which is crazy because not a lot of writing actually takes place! This mini-lesson shows the importance of illustrations and having them match your words! All of these book options are great because they have very little or no words at all, and students have to look at each illustration to tell the story. For this particular mini-lesson, I did not create an actual anchor chart with the students. Instead, I drew a simple picture and had students tell me what was happening in MY story! Then, my writers had to do the same thing! I had their return to their desks and they drew a detailed illustration. Afterwards, in pairs, students had to look at each other's illustrations and try to explain what was happening just from their drawings. This really helped them see the importance of their illustrations! To introduce the Writing Process, I like reading the book Rocket Writes a Story and discussing each part with my writers. Of course, this is truly just an introduction and students will not go through the entire writing process in one lesson! However, it is good that they have an understanding of each component and are aware of the process as they begin their writing units! I allow my writers to glue this mini-anchor chart into their writing notebooks so they always have a visual reminder of the writing process even if it is not currently displayed in our classroom! After students have an understanding of the writing process, we spend more time on how writers can fix or "fancy" their writing using the book Fancy Nancy! Although we go over editing and revising in a mini-lesson, this is definitely not the last time that my writers are introduced to this concept. I model editing and revising throughout the entire year and they have A LOT of practice working independently, with writing partners, and during writing conferences! For these lesson ideas in one easy FREE document, click here or the images below! For the mini-anchor charts click here or the picture below! For the personal dictionary click here or the picture below! For the FREE writing notebook cover and dividers, get the password to my Resource Library here! Or click on the image below to get the password emailed to you! Send it my way! Powered By ConvertKit For all of the subject covers click here or the image below! For the books click here or the image below for my Amazon Affiliate storefront! How do YOU launch Writer's Workshop in your classroom!? I hope this post gave you some ideas for your classroom! If you want to save these ideas for later, make sure to pin the image below!
Writing lesson plans for the entire year! Complete writing units to help you teach writing in kindergarten and 1st grade.
PRIMARY WRITING - UNIT 3 I am so excited to teach this narrative writing unit! This writing curriculum is geared for kindergarten, first grade and can even be used in second grade classrooms. In Unit 3 , we are learning how to write a personal narrative . We practice writing about what we l
Writing personal narratives is one of the first writing genres we learn in first grade! My students are usually successful in this writing venture because they get to write all about themselves. How were they feeling? What happened to them? Who was there? These are all things my students can answer and my job is to […]
