Time-saving Educational resources for K-2 Teachers
You don’t have to wait for the end of the year to make a memory book! Make a yearlong scrapbook that doubles as a writing portfolio for kindergarten and first grade! It’s so great to see how your students’ writing progresses throughout the year and doing this little by little avoids trying to cram it all in at the end (which results in rushed and poor quality writing!). Read this post for some tips to make it easy and save you time.
A great way to scaffold for your emergent writers in kindergarten and first grade is using wordless picture books. These include pictures and students add the text. The word bank helps with spelling and vocabulary. They also include editing pages and students can add details to revise. Read this post to find out how to use these to help your beginning writers become more confident.
One of my favorite things about teaching kindergarten and first grade is reading students’ writing. Sometimes it takes pretty good detective work to decipher it, but you can get so much insight from their invented spelling. Plus, it’s super cute! Obviously, when children are first learning to write, they won’t spell every word correctly. So, they need encouragement to try… Read More
“Teacher, how do you spell (insert any word here)?” If you teach kindergarten or first grade, it’s a question you likely hear all. the. time! I know we wish we could clone ourselves during writing time so we could sit with each student and help them with their spelling, BUT of course we can’t. If we really could clone ourselves,… Read More
This book makes a great mentor text for a personal narrative genre writing unit! Kids can relate to Fireflies by Julie Brinckloe and use some of the strategies she uses to revise their writing workshop stories. Read this post for mini-lesson ideas, an anchor chart, and freebie for Show, not Tell! Great for kindergarten and first grade.
Getting kids to love writing can be difficult sometimes, especially if they are struggling writers. It’s normal to dislike something you’re not good at (or think you’re not good at). I dislike bowling because I have terrible aim and usually end up in the gutter. But, I’m sure if I had the patience took the time to learn some tips,… Read More
Writing is hard for many kids! If you run a writing workshop, you know how important it is to have kids writing independently. Yet, there are many challenges kids can have during this time that can lead to frustration and less-than-ideal work! Teachers face a huge challenge when kids aren’t able to work independently during writing workshop, too. If you… Read More
In Writing Workshop, we are working on How-to books and so far, it’s one of our favorite writing units! Here are some fun ways to introduce this genre: Give directions out of order. Let the kids see how it just doesn’t work that way! Coming to the carpet, cleaning and lining up, getting ready to go home- any of these… Read More
It can be daunting for emergent writers to stretch out words, especially long words. Many of my kindergarten students are very artistic and can add details to their pictures, but when I ask them to add words, they sometimes hesitate or tell me they don’t know how to, even if they do have some letter-sound knowledge. Writing Warm-Ups To get… Read More
I love when I find a great book that I can use for multiple Writer’s Workshop mini-lessons! Mañana Iguana by Ann Whitford Paul is one of these books. It’s a version of The Little Red Hen with a Mexican twist. The main character is an iguana and she wants to throw a fiesta, but the Conejo, Tortuga, and Culebra (Rabbit,… Read More