Do you differentiate your students’ spelling lists by giving them personal spelling words? If so, you can take those lists a step further by providing them with portable word walls for their writing folder and/or for at-home use.
WRITE a slice of life story on your own blog.
SHARE a link to your post in the comments section.
GIVE comments to at least three other SOL bloggers.
I am so grateful to have this resource available to me as an educator at no cost. Maybe someday, I’ll get to thank whoever is behind the Google Curtain in person. In the meantime, I’ll share what’s been working and I’ll look forward to hearing about how some of you end up doing it even better!
Have your upper elementary school students spent lots of time creating a reference list? Free up the time spent on making a reference list perfect by using an online citation tool.
Student-facing checklists can be a powerful tool. While rubrics are helpful for teachers, checklists are helpful for students. Checklists can serve to provide clear targets for writers as they strive to craft pieces of writing. But what might be different ways to use them in your writing workshop? Read to find out…
When we know the purpose or the why in our work we work intentionally. As teachers, knowing our writers are working with intention allows us to trust the students. With trust, we can step back and allow students to make the decisions about their writing.
I’ve been having a fear, lately, of forgetting. Forgetting words from kids, from colleagues, from friends that moved me. Forgetting big moments of growth, change, empathy. Forgetting artifacts of learning. I fear I… Continue reading
Synthesizing is that step we can’t skip when teaching our writers to craft research writing. It is within the wait time between the research and the writing that students gain their best understandings. Here are five strategies to help your writers fill that wait time with meaningful ways to get their gears in motion in a mixing of new thinking.
What are the educational issues calling your name? How can you use writing to share about your teaching experiences? A Long Island Writing Project workshop, facilitated by Katherine Schulten, inspired me to keep sharing my teaching stories.
The same kids who are successful with spelling patterns during word study time are sometimes not applying that spelling pattern to their independent writing. Why?
From the planning process to the creation, read to find out six ways to make kids the center of your charts–the center of learning.
Beginning the day more thoughtfully and mindfully leads to more thoughtful and mindful decisions as the day unfolds. Begin today with writing!
This week, I welcome Katie Bristol as a guest blogger. Katie teaches kindergarten in Simsbury, CT, and she is my go-to person whenever I have a question about the youngest members of our school community. While her post may seem specific to kindergarten, her insights are important to educators who work in all grades. Follow Katie on twitter @bristol_katie.
Want to improve your conferring? Carl Anderson’s new book, A Teacher’s Guide to Writing Conferences, will help you learn the ins and outs of conferring well with young writers.
Read the Q&A with Carl, then leave a comment on this blog post for a chance to win a copy of your own!
Coaches of young athletes often offer tips, reminders, and suggestions from the sidelines in hopes of eliciting the best possible performance from the team. As teachers of writing, we can borrow this structure in our small group settings.
The decisions I make from the classroom library to family connections are intentional and responsive to building a community of writers and learning about the students who make up this community.
WRITE a slice of life story on your own blog.
SHARE a link to your post in the comments section.
GIVE comments to at least three other SOL bloggers.
Using video and visuals helped this young third-grader lead his class in a lesson on rehearsal and planning.
In what ways have you pushed yourself to try a new type of writing or to share your ideas in a public way? In July, I pushed myself to write a keynote speech and learned lessons along the way.
You see the beauty in your kids’ work: every misspelled word, every cross-out, every taped-on flap. You know that all that “messiness” is evidence of good work that kids are doing. Hard work.
But outside your classroom, the rest of the world might not see it that way.
