Daily 5- Chapter 6

Writing and Word Work

Writing:  Students work on writing of their choice- individually or with a partner.  (I allow children to get caught up on assigned writing pieces if they want)

The Daily Five Sisters

Examples of Writing:

• persuasive writing
• friendly letters
• reports on a topic
• poetry
• plays
• narratives
• prompt ideas

Why?

• to become better reader and writers
• we care about our writing and audience
• Choice
• It is fun
• work on fluency of writing

Day 1:

Model what to do when writing words you can't spell

Create I chart of student and teacher

Day 2:

Model where to sit in the room

Materials to use

Day 3: (see my posts on Daily Five and Journals)

What to write about (I give many topic lists)

Show forms and keep in a place available to kids

Create an resource book of forms

Day4:

Continue to teach lessons based on your writing curriculum


Word Work: I did not do this last year with my fourth graders but will be adding it in the fall.  We are using Words Their Way for spelling and need to do sorts.

experimenting and practice patterns
memorize high frequency words
generalize word patterns
add to knowledge of words

Why?

• It helps us become better readers, writers and spellers
• We care about our writing
• It is fun!

Examples of Word Work materials:

• whiteboards
• magnetic letters
• wikki stix
• clay
• stamps
• colored markers

Day1:

Introduce a material or spelling activity

Brainstorm I Chart

Model how to clean-up

Day 2:

Continue modeling and introduce word work according to your curriculum

Ideas: (optional ideas)

word sorts; open, closed, etc.

adding words to class lists

add words to their rule of the week

practice misspelled words

word or vocabulary games

http://3rdgradesahoot.blogspot.com/

A Connection between School and Nature

This was a piece of writing that one of my fourth graders wrote in her journal in the fall.  It is one of my favorite all time pieces!



I retyped below if you can't read it

I was perusing journals one afternoon and came across this treasure.  I asked my student where she got the idea and Emily said that she was inspired by the paper.  She came up with a great analogy about school, bees, students, teachers and principals.
It just proves that great writing can happen during "free writing time."



"I have always loved school and homework.  But now I am in 4th grade, I realize the connection between nature and school.

To me, the teachers are bees.  They help students blossom into wonderful learners.  They sometimes sting you but will never perpously hurt you.
I think the principal is the queen bee.  The principal is here to guide students and teachers to help all of them blossom.  She can also sting you but it will always have a reason.

I think we students as flowers.  The teachers help us blossom.  If we get pushed down we wilt, but the bees will bring us back up.  I think students and teachers have a special connection to nature."

Emily , age 9

Just Journals!

How do you get kids excited about journaling?  I always have a hard time with journals.  The year starts out great and then they somehow turn into drawing notebooks.  This year went better than others...but my journals still have room for improvement!

This year, I gave my children time to journal during our Daily Five.  This allows them time to write about topics of their choice.  Some of their best pieces are in their journals!

I would also use their journals for brainstorming and to write some drafts in their books.  You need to make it an expectation and part of your daily routine. Most children will not write unless you ask them to do it!

Just like everything, the kids are excited in September and then it dies down and forgotten about .  Every month, I would put out some new pads of paper which would spark their writing.  I also added some envelopes, writing templates, papers with borders and topic/idea lists.  I always check the dollar bins at Target.  Cut-out from the Ellison machine work well too!

Another thing that the kids love, is to occasionally share a favorite piece of writing.  I have them pick out a piece to read at morning meeting.  Next year, I want to make sure to check in more often on an individual basis with their journals.  I will make it part of my Daily Five conferences.

I bought a bunch of different sized notebooks and let the children publish a piece in our "Class Journals." Each journal has a theme on the front cover.  They can write a piece in their own journal and copy it into the Class Journal.  The printables on the right were from someone's blog and I can't remember...Sorry!

I asked the kids to pick out something that I could take a picture of and share and

 this is what I got this week...

Two of my girls wrote a poem for partners...so creative!

Lots of poems, stories, lists, letters, etc.

There are many lists of ideas for your students to use.  Last year, I printed out the monthly journal calendars on Busy Teachers Cafe.  See link below for an example of one...

http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/worksheets/journals/primary/may_p2.pdf

This year I printed out the journal lists below in the fall (I had some of the same kids) and had them keep them in their writing binders.  Next year my plan is to reduce any writing resources and put them in their notebooks in the back.

I printed these out in the fall and don't know from where...there are many others available on-line.

Laura Candler has many free resources...check out her site.

http://www.lauracandler.com/filecabinet/literacy/PDFWriting/PersonalNarrativeTopics.pdf

http://www.lauracandler.com/filecabinet/literacy/PDFWriting/ImaginativeNarrativeTopics.pdf

This is a great resource for using journals in the classroom...I have read it several times!

This book has some good mini-lessons and printables.