Launching the Writers' Workshop in Kindergarten

We had hoped that our county would adopt Lucy Calkins new grade specific Writing Units. However, when they didn't we decided to buy them through school funds and they have arrived!  It has been so exciting to be our Kindergarten Writers' Workshop with Calkins' first Launching book.  We are so proud of our kindergartners as they are "fancying up" this first unit in writing - Teaching Books.  The children have been writing books about things they know a lot about and let me tell you, they know a lot of stuff!  We have worked up to 15 minutes of quiet independent writing each day.  We know how to close our eyes and think about a topic, how to select the right paper for what we want to write, how to plan by touching each page and thinking about what we want to say,  how to start with a picture and add details, how to add words by stretching them out and writing the sounds that we hear, how to use the word wall (on the ceiling!) how to add labels to our pictures,  how to ask questions and get suggestions from a partner, how to staple our pages together, how to use a date stamp and how to put our first and last name on our books.  We have become a busy community of writers!  Thank you, Lucy Calkins!

Reviewing Student Work

I brought my writing folders home over the long Labor Day weekend -  all 35 folders! - so I could analyze student writing and get a good idea of how much of the teaching I have been doing is getting through.  I also want to try to learn each author as a writer.  As I go through each folder I have been writing and printing notes on labels to post in our Writer's Notebook under each child's name.  This is an example of one child's note:



Name      9/1/12       Pattern Books 
+good spacing with sight words spelled correctly and phonetic spelling of unknown words
+good fluency
+has started "Have you seen my mom?..." pattern book

-work on finishing pattern and creating a "changed up" ending
-add question mark to "Have you seen my mom?" and capital after the question mark

These notes are a little more thoughtful and longer than I am usually able to write after a conference because we always have a number of children waiting for a conference and the time seems so short... so my jots during the Writers' Workshop are quicker and more to the point.  I do like the + (plus) to indicate noticings and things they already do well and the - (minus) to indicate next things to work on.  Because we have more than one teacher using our Writers' Notebook, we generally write our notes on sticky notes during the Workshop and add them at the end of the day under each child's name.  When you have more than one teacher involved, it is extremely important to make sure you know what the other teacher(s) may have talked to the student about the last time they had a conference so it's important to review the notes before each conference.  The Writer's Notebook becomes our way of detailing the progress of each learner.

I learned so much about these writers... As I was reading the pattern books I came across one student's pattern book that broke my heart.

Translation:
My Dad does not have a job.
My mom does not have a job.
My brother does not have a job.
I do not have a job.
My uncle does not have a job.
Does anyone have a job?

The pattern is perfect.  The message... heartbreaking.

100 Points of Light

In the last post, I talked about our new word wall that is going to be on the ceiling! In trying to orient the children in figuring out just how the wall was going to work (it's around the outside of two walls) we wanted to do something fun. We had the idea of darkening the room and working with flashlights and letting the children find words with the lights, but... as with so many ideas, we didn't have 36 flashlights. As we were considering raiding the hurricane stash, Williams' mom came to rescue and sent in 36 little flashlights with batteries! They are the perfect size. We used the lights today and the children could hardly stay in their seats. They were so excited. We had all the children, and then tables of children, and finally, individual children, find letters and words. I have a good feeling that the children understand the alphabetical order and where to find the words and they did it in such a novel way. We plan to use the flashlights at least once a week, so... if you have any great games and ideas, let us know!