Writing Workshop- Personal narratives and making our writing easy to read
The words "writing" and "magical" seem to go hand in hand in my mind. Whenever we settle into our writers workshop time, you can see their wheels turning as they go through the process of thinking about what they want to say, determining which letters they need, and then writing it on the page. You can see their smiles as they share with you an experience they had that they were able to capture on the page. During this next writing unit, we are working on writing personal narratives-true stories from our own lives. What makes a great narrative story? Well, here is the checklist we are using to help us to help us think about that. |
Until now, we have wanted the focus of writing to be feeling good about getting their ideas out on the page and we have hidden the struggles with being able to translate their letters into meaning. We have been distracting children from the fact that we can't read their writing by highlighting their picture and their ability to tell their story with their own storyteller words. The problem with this is that the way students students develop and interest in spelling, conventions, and spaces comes from the fact that these things make is easier for other people to read and understand their text. Alas, the dance begins. We want to empower them as writers who have ideas to share, but we also want them to be shared in a form that is readable to others. The most crucial skills to make their writing more clear are: writing in sentences and re-reading their work as they write.
Learning more about vowels!
We are cruising right along in our phonics learning and have transitioned into focusing on those tricky vowel sounds! We have learned that EVERY single word has a vowel in it. If we are writing something in writers workshop and notice that one of our words doesn't have a vowel, we need to add one. A, E, I, O, U, and Y are tricky sounds for students to produce and to differentiate from each other. Having reference words that students can associate with each letter is helpful. Emphasizing these sounds when stretching out words in books and writing will really help them learn the difference between them. We have also been sorting words by their middle sound, which could be a fun activity for home as well.
100th day of school celebration!
counting our collection of 100 things! | making 100 fruit loop necklaces |
We counted 2,000 pom poms all together!!!