I'm so excited that I've finally got my writing center up! This week we finally started doing the Work on Writing component of the Daily 5 independently. I realize that it's clear into the 2nd week in October, but I didn't decide to try the Daily 5 until the middle of August, so I was doing all sorts of overhauling/creating on top of getting ready for school to start. Consequently I'm a bit slow. A few weeks ago, my to-do list for this project seemed insurmountable. I contemplated tossing the whole thing out the window. Now it's all pulled together AND the kids are loving it. Every time I look at that part of my classroom I smile. :)
Here's what the finished product looks like:
I used some writing centers I'd seen on Pinterest as inspiration. This one is from Jessica Meacham.
They can also write in the class story journals (another Pinterest idea from Delightful Daily 5 Cafe). There's so much emphasis on nonfiction and persuasion in the new core, that I was sad to see a lot of the personal narrative time lost. Hopefully this will be like a sort of personal narrative patch.
I put out some "Take it to Your Seat Writing Centers" from Evan-Moore that I'd inherited from Em.
Students have the choice of writing in their journals about any topic they choose or they can pick one of my suggestions. I started with some general prompts (What's your favorite holiday? What do you think about frogs?) that I printed on stickers and put on Popsicle Sticks (Pinterest idea from First Grade Fresh).
Since I don't have a Jehovah's Witness student this year, I'm going all out for the holidays!! For October, I got some little notebooks in the Target Dollar Spot. I cut out all the papers and wrote a prompt on the inside cover. The bowl is also from Target. The rule is they have to write about whichever prompt they pick UNLESS they've already done it.
I originally started with 12, but since this is such a popular choice I ended up using all 18 little notebooks. Some prompts I found, some I made up.
- If a witch lost her cat, what could she use for a pet?
- What would happen if you were in a graveyard at night?
- Imagine you run a restaurant for monsters. What sorts of things would you serve?
- What if you were trick-or-treating and your bag broke? What would you do?
- I think my teacher should be ____ for Halloween because _____
- Have you ever been really scared? What happened?
- I wish I weren't afraid of ...
- How would you make a robot costume?
- What do you think about spiders?
- What do you think about mummies?
- How would you catch a vampire or a ghost?
- The mad scientist was creating a new monster that could...
- How do you carve a pumpkin? Write all the steps.
- What if you had a pet werewolf?
- Imagine you're walking your dog and he runs into a creepy, old house. You follow him. What happens?
- Tell all about your favorite thing about Halloween?
- What were you for Halloween last year? What did your costume look like?
- Pretend you have a magic broomstick. What does it look like? What does it do?
I have a bunch of notepads from the dollar store and Target Dollar Spot. The rule is one "fancy" paper per day. I wish you could find stationery sets like they used to sell at the dollar store, but I guess no one writes letters anymore.
Writing letters is the favorite choice right now.
The idea of a classroom post office has always scared me, but this is running really smoothly. Our mailbox is a plastic container from the dollar store. Unfortunately, I waited to cut the slit until AFTER I'd painted so it got pretty thrashed from the scissors. :( And, of course, I'm now out of blue spray paint. The battered box drives me nuts, but the kids don't seem to notice.
I read all the letters after school. In the morning, I have one of the early birds hand them out. So far it's running well and I've only had to weed out a couple mean spirited notes and one love letter.
I love the list choice, but so far no one has been interested in it. You can get the list steps here.
I found some printable Halloween labels and added Octobery themed prompts. You can download the file here. I don't know who created the clipart and I've tried doing a Google search. If anyone knows, please tell me so I can credit the designer.
The right side of the bulletin board is our stamina graph (from F is for First Grade.) The kids get so excited to beat their time everyday!
Once we're done needing the daily stamina booster, I want to add poetry and research in as writing choices. However, I don't have a clue how to set those up! Any suggestions??
