Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Last week I promised to share student work and my reflections after a week of Getting Kids Excited About Writing. As I listened to teachers talk about their plans to support the earliest demands of their writers,  "What do I write about?"  I began to wonder, "What if we… Continue reading A Weeks Reflections and Student Work

Last week, I wrote about the step back our kindergarten teachers took as they launched writing workshop this year. And I admitted to you that the children were not writing, they were drawing their stories. There were no words, not even letters, in their work. Their teachers were holding their breath, and we had begun… Continue reading And Just Like That, They Wrote

So how do we help these young storytellers bring their stories to paper? How do we show them these are the stories writers write? I think we begin by getting our kids excited, really excited, like "I can do this, let me write NOW! Excited.

In a recent post about small group instruction, I wrote about ways to group students who need instruction on a similar strategy. Sometimes, we form small groups ahead of time through careful planning. However, sometimes, we notice a few students grappling with a common concept or a group of students sign up for a seminar; developing… Continue reading Tools to have on hand for Small Group Instruction