Diggin' into Writing!

So, this week my friends and I are sharing what we do with Writing.  This is one of my favorite things to talk about.  I have my kiddos write about everything we do!  When I was teaching Kindergarten a couple of years ago, my assistant use to tease me about how excited I would get about a writing idea:)  Boy! Do I miss her now that I am in first grade.


This is our Word of the Day calendar that I start my mornings with.  Each student is also given a copy.  We go over the word, and they write it in their notebooks along with a definition and a picture of the word.  I encourage them to use these words in their stories during Writing Workshop.  At the end of the month, they will circle 5 of the words and write a monthly story that will go in a class book.  They love to go back and reread their stories.

Just click on the picture to see more or to purchase.

I would let my students pair up to discuss their words.

 This is a sample of what I did with each month's stories.

This is a sample of one of the writings one of my kiddos did using the November calendar words.

I also had them divide into groups for a mock election, indoor recess vs. outdoor recess.  This is a great activity to do for persuasive writing.

This group did just a good job that one of my little guys said."I want to change my mind because I agree with these girls."  Mrs. Beckner, they did a good job because they made me want to change teams."  How cute is that!





I had to show ya'll how much progress that my students made in writing.  These are samples from our May Calendar Words.  I was so proud of my kiddos!

This one was written by one of my ELL students.  I just love what she said,"Culture is when you do your own thing."  I just really hear her voice in this writing.

This is our class mascot, Quality Quentin.  My students love writing about him and his adventures at their homes.  He takes turns going home with "Quality Students"

I teach them the Quality Student Song at the beginning of the year and they learn what quality behavior is, and Quality Quentin helps us:)


After we do the song, we begin to work on the pages in their books that are in our Back to School Bundle.

This bundle has our Quality Student song included as well.

The cool thing about that was when this student chose to write about a quality student during Writing Workshop.  They wrote some of the words from the chorus of the song.  This was the second or third week of school.  We do sing the song and discuss it's meaning daily for a couple of weeks.

 Then my students wrote a big book about what quality students do.

 I just love how this ELL student did his page!  He didn't have much english but he definitely got some of the lyrics from the song.  He told me that this was him dancing to the Quality Student song.

 This page was written by  the little guy you saw reading Quentin's Journal.  I love the glasses!

This little guy has a mohawk and he drew all his pictures of himself like this.  I didn't realize that until I asked him"Is that your party hat?"  He informed me that it was his hair.  Lesson here is: I will say"Tell me about this part of your picture."

My kiddos love Quentin and they enjoy writing stories about him!

This is a chapter book that was written by a couple of my girls during Writing Workshop.  I was amazed at what they did!  I am only showing ya'll a few of the pages and they are not in order but I think you will get the idea:)

I do a lot of singing and dancing in my classroom because I feel it is very important to keep my kiddos moving as they learn.  After we learn a song, I like to have my students write about it.

This is the big book we did after we learned our Community Helper song.

The song is included in our Community Helper Bundle.  We also included the Quality student song as well and a daily lesson plan.

 I taught my students our "Goods and Services" song and then they wrote about their own goods that they created.

This is what my students wrote after we learned our "Direction Salsa" song.

My kiddos wrote these cute stories after we sang the "Spend a Little Save a Little" song.  The piggy bank template is included with the song.

This is a fun Fall Writing Activity to do:  Students collect leaves,do leaf rubbings and then write about it.

My students did Animal research and made these dioramas and wrote about them.

We made these cute paper plate animals and wrote books about them.

 All throughout the year, I had my students write about their experiences in First Grade and then they compiled all the pages in a book.

 I invited kindergarten classes to our room and my first graders shared their books with them.  It is a great opportunity for the kindergarten students to learn about First Grade and my kiddos loved to share!

 You can purchase just the individual songs in our dollar store.


I hope you got some fun writing ideas!  I could share so much more, but I better stop so ya'll can look at some other great ideas:

Go to http://wherethemagichappensdaily.blogspot.com


Check us out on Wednesday.  We will be guest blogging on Teaching Momster's Blog about Math Centers and Games.