Writing about the Field Trip

One of the reasons that we take field trips in Kindergarten is so that our children will have shared experiences to write about. So... children across the grade level have been writing about their day at the Diamond D Ranch. Below are some examples of the writing in a single class. The children were given half sheets of paper and encouraged to write about a single event on each half sheet. After working for a few days, each child stapled his single pages into a booklet titled "My First Field Trip."

I went on the bus. It was good.

My favorite part was when I fed the cows.

...and I went on the bounce house.

I was brave.

...and I rode on the horses.

After the children completed their books, they were taught how to give compliments and suggestions. The teacher divided the children into partner groups so they could practice rereading their work and also practice giving and getting compliments and suggestions. They were taking the first steps of learning the rituals and routines around peer editing.

From another kinder class (Ms. Lewis) comes this sample of writing about the common shared experience of our field trip to the Diamond D Ranch.We went on a

field trip to Diamond D

and my favorite

part was feeding

the animals. There were

goats and it tickled

my hand. The farmer

game me the food.

I fed the

animals by putting

my hand in the

gate. I did

it lots of times.