Writer's Workshop

Now that we have some basic writing skills, we are trying something new in writing. For this unit, I am letting the crew choose what genre they would like to write. Their choices are personal narrative, nonfiction books on animals or other topics, how-to books, or poetry. I will be providing mini-lessons for the students who choose to write a how-to book or poetry since we haven't studied those genres yet this year. Once we all have several new pieces of writing we will begin a new study on revising our writing. Students will revise any or all of their pieces to make them better.

Library day is tomorrow!

Short video of our classroom during writing
 

Making Books

People love to make things and we are using this love to engage our crew in writing by having them make books. We are all the authors of our own stories and get to choose what ideas and tools we use. We are looking at lots of different books to see how published authors make books and we are getting many new ideas. Ask your child about the book he or she is currently writing.

Writing Checklist

During our Writer's Workshop we are working on writing books about our families. Together we created a checklist of things we should remember to do when writing our books. Our list is pictured below along with some sample pages from our books that demonstrate some of the things on our checklist. You will also see our learning targets posted below each writing sample.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 3.14 Domino Top-It

Library
We have library tomorrow. Please help your child remember to return his or her books.

Writer's Workshop

One day last week, I looked up during Writer's Workshop and noticed that we had turned a corner and we were working like first graders during our writing time. The crew was all so engaged in what they were doing that I just felt like I had to stop conferring with kids for a minute to capture it on video. They are really becoming writers. (Full disclosure: I did take 3 thirty second videos because on my first two tries kids looked up and saw I was filming and waved. I wanted to show them working not waving so I tried again. It was very cute and they went right back to work. I never told the kids I was filming, though.) You will see some students working at their desks and others on the computers. During this work time, Ms. Wendy and I move around the room to confer with different writers - this is their one-on-one teaching/learning time. (If you get this post by email, you will need to go directly to the blog to view the videos.)

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 2.13 Counting Money

Crew News January 24, 2013

Writer's Workshop
During Writer's Workshop, we have begun a new study of realistic fiction. These are stories that could have happened but didn't. We talked about how writing this kind of story is a little bit like playing pretend. The writer (or pretender) gets to decide what happens and how the story will turn out. We are currently reading many realistic fiction books to notice how other authors write this type of story. This kind of story is fun to write because the author can be so creative and imaginative. They also help us think through some of our own problems as we read and write about the problems that the characters face.



Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 6.1 Finding Addition Sums

Crew News August 29, 2011

Writer's Workshop
In Writer's Workshop, we have been studying pattern books. For the last few weeks, we have been reading various books that are based on patterns and noticing how the author wrote the book. One thing we have noticed is that most of the time the pattern will change at the very end of the book. That is how the author concludes or ends the book. We are going to try to write some of our own pattern books now that we have looked at some mentor texts and thought about how authors write this type of book.

Interesting Article
 I found a short, interesting article this weekend about how to help your child love to read. It has some good ideas on how to hook your child on reading. Here is the link if you are interested:

Guerrilla Tactics to Get Your Child to Love Reading

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Play Top-It. (This is the same as the game we used to call "War" when we were kids.)