Expanding Writer's Workshop in First and Second Grade!

After teaching writing to my first graders for 5 years, I have a sad secret to share with you:

I totally underestimated my young students.

Bleck. That pains me to say, but it is true. My first year in a classroom I thought writer's workshop was going to be an absolute trainwreck in 1st grade. I would look at exemplar writing pieces from 1st grade students and thought to myself, "who are these genius little children?!" Clearly I didn't think they really existed... and if they did I thought for sure they wouldn't be found in my room.

I knew writing was an area I needed to work on and build confidence in, so I began to tackle it. Slowly, but surely I took each Common Core writing standard and broke it down in a way that I thought I could handle. I still had my doubts, but my students had NO problem proving me wrong.

I started with personal narratives. We picked our small moments, learned the difference between a watermelon and a seed moment, and used Froggy books to add capital letters, sound effects and more. It was fun and it was eye-opening! My students could do a lot more than I gave them credit for.

Then, in the winter, we researched and published our own all about books. Talk about FUN! My students were gaining more and more independence as they became better writers (and readers).

Come springtime, we would learn how to express our opinions. We had fun respectfully arguing with one another and providing reasons for our opinions. By the end of the year we all felt successful and I could see tremendous growth in their writing!

Now, each of these units took about a month, give or take, so what we were doing the rest of the year?! Prompts! Lots of prompts. Now... there is NOTHING wrong with writing prompts... in fact, we love them in room 102 and still use them from time to time (especially at the beginning of the year to build confidence - see post HERE). However, with all that extra time in the year, I felt like I might be able to push my students a little further through more writer's workshop. So the past two years I have made it a personal goal to expand my writer's workshop!

I took a look at my yearly writing scope and sequence that my team had come up with and decided that room 102 was going to dive in head first and see what happens. Well, the last two years I have been THRILLED with my students' ability to take what they have learned in each writing genre and push it one step further.

My year overall looked like this:
August- September: Gaining confidence and building stamina in Writer's Workshop
October-November: Personal Narratives
December: Seasonal prompts
January-February: All About Books
Early March: How to Unit
March - May: Opinion & Reviews
May- June: Realistic Fiction

We took what we learned from writing personal narratives at the beginning of the year and shifted our focus writing realistic fiction at the end of the year. We took our informative writing and expanded upon it through a writing how-to mini unit. We also took what we knew about writing our opinions and wrote reviews of local restaurants and movies. We dug deeper and I raised the bar in each of the Common Core writing genres and I am so happy I did!

Immediately after we finish our informative, All About Books, we took just a week or two to publish our own "How-to" booklet. Since non-fiction was still fresh in my students' minds, they were able to quickly identify things they knew how to do and teach others:

Since they could do most of this unit independently, I was really able to pull smaller groups to focus on specific skills (punctuation, sentence variation, leads, details, closings, etc). You can read more about what is in my how to unit {here}.

Right after we learn how to express our opinions in the spring, we take it one step further and write reviews! My kids seriously love this and I totally play up the whole "critic" concept.

There must be something to giving your students the ownership and pride to be an expert, or  teacher, or a critic. Let them take that leadership and empower them they will soar, I tell you! To read more about my reviews unit, head {here}.

Lastly, at the end of the year is our "toughest" unit, When we write realistic fiction it is when we bring everything full circle. We take all we have learned the whole year and create our very own story books!

My higher students really push the envelope here and write their own chapter books or series and create their own "boxed set" by decorating a cereal box. I can tell you that before these last 2 years in my classroom, my students NEVER would've written chapter books! And that's on ME, not them.

All of these extended units are available in my writer's workshop bundle {HERE}!

So if you are working towards polishing up your writer's workshop blocks this year, maybe these ideas will work for your kids! Expand their thinking and their writing and I think you will all be impressed with what your students turn out!

Happy writing :)

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How to Writing in First Grade

How to writing is one of my favorite writing units to teach. 

My students just get it and they enjoy writing many, many pieces!

Maybe it's because my students think they know how to do everyyyytthiinngggg ;)

If your students are like mine, let them run with the idea that they know it ALL and have them write all their genius down on paper!

During my first couple years of teaching I taught the how-to genre as a short unit largely reliant on prompts. I would ask all my students to complete the same prompt using transition words. We wrote all about how to build a snowman, how to make a sandacastle, how to brush our teeth, etc. and we called it a day.

That was fun and my students certainly learned how to write some procedural pieces, but I fell in love with writer's workshop and wanted to create a unit that aligned. I wanted my students to own their how-to pieces, get excited about them and walk through the entire writing process from brainstorming to publishing.

My students recently published their how-to books and I wanted to share a little about how we completed our books and the process we went through.

Brainstorming:

After we learned what the "how-to" genre was all about, we brainstormed some things we know how to do at school, outside, at home, and in the kitchen!

Zooming in:

When teaching this unit, I quickly realized that my students needed help choosing a *smaller* topic. We spend a whole day practicing zooming in on larger topics to find a more specific thing to teach someone how to do.

Writing:

 

Writing, writing, writing!

 I explain in my unit that my students write many, many pieces to keep throughout this unit. Every time we learn a new skill or concept, my students go back into their writing folders and add it to their older pieces. Our writing pages are always a work in progress!

Publishing:

When it is publishing time, my students choose one of their writing pieces to edit/revise and turn into their own book!

Along with these steps there is plenty more in the how-to unit I created:

 
 

If you click the image above you can download the preview and see what else is in there!

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Winter Activities for First Grade!

BRRRRR... it's cold in here...

(there must be some Torros in the atmosphere - tell me I'm not the only one that thought of that right away!)

We are back at it in room 102. It sure is cold out and we are just having fun, working away! It was hard to go back, don't get me wrong, but I just love seeing their little, smiling faces after such a long break.

In math, we have been learning all about fact families. We used these two excellent freebies from two of my blogging friends:

Ummm.... yeah that is Frankenstein... and I know it's January, but Katie King's freebie is too dang good not to use. So, we called it "monster math" and went about our day!

Grab it HERE!

Then, sticking with the season, we used this cute freebie from Michelle Oakes! My students loved the little penguins.

Grab it HERE!

In writing, we went right back into writing how-to stories. I picked up these two books over break and I was so excited to put them to good use:

How to Babysit a Grandpa by Jean Reagan

How To by Julie Morstad

After we read both books, I had my students practice their how-to writing using the prompt, "This is how I stay warm in the cold!" We have plenty of winter prompts that we are using from my Writing through the Seasons {Winter} unit.

First, get a blanket and snuggle in it. Next, stand next to the heater. Watch out! Not that close. Last, put on mittens, a coat, and a scarf. I feel warm.

First, you make a fire out of sticks. Next, get some winter clothes like a hat and coat and mittens. Last, you drink hot cocoa and you get a blanket.

In reading, we have been practicing close reading in small groups - is your district all about it too?! Thankfully, I had some training on close reading in Vegas before I left so I was pretty familiar with the process before I moved back to MA. We are using both fiction and non-fiction passages from my Close Reading Winter pack - which will be done SOON!

Here is a sneak peek:

Hope everyone is back in the swing of things!

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All About Books - We're Almost Finished!

Valentine's Day, President's Day, and lots of staff development has gotten in the way of us completing our All About Books, but I am happy to say we are in the final stages!!

I wanted to show you all a sneak peek of our hard work:

Cover Pages:

 

Dedication pages:

 I dedicate this book to my brother, Max, because if I'm sick he will do my chores for me.

Hahahaha!

 I dedicate this book to my mom and dad because they help me learn to do math, reading, and writing. And I love them more than chocolate ice cream.

Diagram:

Different Kinds:

Over the next two days we are editing and finishing our how-to pages, our research paragraphs, and our about the author pages! This year I asked my students to write their "About the Author" in the third person and they are AH-DOR-UH-BLE!

If all goes as planned we will be having goldfish, animal crackers, and sparkling cider next Friday to celebrate our hard work :)

If you would like to make your own All About Books, just click on the cover image below and you can see more about it!

Happy Hump Day!

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