Writers Workshop: Where We're At

Last week we did our first real 100% independent writing!!!!  We have been working, working, working, our illustrations, labeling and finishing prompts up to this point. I wanted my kiddos to have a great understanding of print concepts and how to sound things out and write what they hear before we dove into any independent writing.

Well, last week, I decided it was time!!! I thought they were ready!!! And I am soooooo happy with what they did!!!

First of all, let me just say that I could NOT teach writing without these 3 things!! They make the task of teaching kinders to write sooooooooo much easier. You know that if you teach Kinder-writing is NOT an easy thing to teach!! In fact, in my opinion it's the absolute hardest!!

Here's one thing: this "what can we write about" anchor chart is a must!! We used this to decide what we were going to "write about" even when we were working on labeling. They had to decide what they were going to draw for that day and label.

 This little rating scale has improved our illustrations tremendously!!!!!!  AND it promotes self-assessment! I just have pictures on there for now because that is what we have been focusing on. There are lines under each picture and the chart is laminated. I figure I can add words to show 4 start writing when they ready for that....perhaps after Christmas. This will also allow me to change it as my expectations in their writing for them change and they I can just erase it at the end of the year for next years' class :)

The third thing are these direction cards.  You can find them HERE.  These cards force the kids to think about their writing and PLAN it out before they start! I like to have my kiddos think about their sentence, count the words and draw that many lines. It helps with knowing what they will write before they write it AND it helps them have correct spacing between their words ;)

 Here are some of the samples of their writing that I got on that first day!! I'm a happy teacher!! <3

 {Me and my Dad are go carting.}

{I love my family.}

{I have a cat named Tiger.}

{A fairy has wings.}

{Ralphy is my favorite dog.}

{Me and Avery play soccer together.}

{Patrick and Sponge Bob are friends.}

This is the kind of writing you know you are going to get when you have 16 boys in your class!!!

{Mario kills bad guys.}

AND this one is my personal FAVORITE!!!!!!! :)

{Murphy is going to the bathroom.}

I'm just so proud that they all picked a topic, drew a great illustration and wrote a sentence to match!!! We're getting there......