Lucy Calkins Writing + TpT FREEBIE

Good morning! As we jump back into school, a new year is an excellent time to reorganize. In my classroom we follow the Lucy Calkins Writing Units of Study (it is the mandated writing curriculum from the county). Not only is this my first year teaching writing in Kinder, it's also my first exposure to Lucy Calkins (talk about a learning curve).

Before beginning writing, I set up a writing folder for each of my students. Calkins suggests that the folders have one side for pieces the students are working on and one side for finished pieces. I created these easy to read (Kinder friendly) labels to use in my folders. I wanted something that was going to be understood by all of my students (ESOL and nonreader friendly). Simply place the "GO I'm working on." green label on the left pocket in the writing folder and the "STOP I'm finished." red label on the right pocket. I've also included a writing folder label for the front of each folder. Grab your FREEBIE below!

Click for link to FREEBIE download!

Next, check out Learning At The Primary Pond and her post about using writing folders to support independent writers. I referred to her post several times while creating my writing folders. She has an awesome freebie included in her post. Thank you Alison!

Click for a link to the post.

Everyday during writing my students use their writing folder. Every. Single. Day! In the prongs I have added several writing resources for students to use during independent writing time. All the resources I chose to use are from TpT. Check out these fantastic resources and those who made them! (Click on the images for links to the resources on TpT.)

This resource is phenomenal!
I especially love the personal word wall.

I love, love, love this rubric!
So much that I created an anchor chart version of it.

Food for thought: How do you organize students writing materials in your classroom? What curriculum do you follow? What do you find challenging about teaching writing in Kinder?

Winter Break = Halftime

Happy New Year! I hope 2017 is filled with peace, love, and joy in your home and classroom.

I spent the first day of the new year at the Falcons last regular season game with my family. (Shoutout to my brother for the tickets! Christmas gifts rock!) At the game one team struggled in the first half to stay consistent with their plays and crack the opponents code. The other team scored over and over again! Luckily, we were the team repetitively scoring! Following halftime the roles were slightly reversed. It was clear that the team who struggled had figured out their opponent and was having an easier time getting into the red zone. Meanwhile, we continued to play well but didn't put up many more points. Both of these teams changed the way their played following halftime.

I'd like to think it's the same in the field of education. This winter break has been my halftime. A time for me to take a deep breath, review my plays, reset the playbook, and continue doing my job the best I can. Now I have two options. I can continue to play using what I have learned about my students to adjust how I teach or I can change nothing and just play hard enough to make it to the end of the game with a victory. Out of these two options, I choose the first.

During the first half of the school year I thought I taught well. My kids made progress! They're reading, writing, speaking English, gaining independence, and learning content through exploration. However, boy oh boy did I need this break! I want to finish strong in the second half. I have figured out how my class works and what my students need. I know what things have worked and what things need to be improved. I'm ready to go for the second half of the school year.

So what does all this mean? In this new year, my focus will be meeting all of my students where they are to best prepare them for first grade. What makes this tricky in my classroom is being able to see all students in a small group setting for several content areas, multiple times a week. I have an additional teacher with me for 45 minutes once a day during ELA (ESOL is awesome!). As a first year teacher i have struggled with small group rotations while I am the only teacher in the room. I feel that 10-15 minutes, twice a week with each group is not near enough time to move my students forward. It also seems to be easier for me to prepare for guided reading rather than guided math. Any tips?

Food for thought: What did you need to review and reset from the first half of the school year? What adjustments will you be making as we continue to teach? What will your focus be going into the second half of the school year?

Humor me: How do you manage to see all of your students as often as you need to? What is an effective amount of time to work with each group throughout the week? How do you effectively prepare for each group in advance (TpT products, curriculum, guided reading/math, daily 5/3?)?

Good luck to everyone as we get back into our classrooms. I hope your break was filled with time to enjoy those around you and the holidays. If you haven't yet, take a minute to review and rest, read to continue! We have more game to play and we cannot give up.

My classroom before students arrived in August.