Five for Friday: Ready, Set, Go!

Hey guys!  Since I have been spending most of my week putting final touches in my classroom, I thought I would share!

This is our meeting area for writer's workshop. I have a confession to make.   I got the rug, chairs, and stool for free.  I am the garage sale queen, but recently I graduated to being lucky enough to spot some things people were getting rid of!  My teammate has the coolest alternative seating, so I am taking ideas from her and trying them out in my room this year.  Yes...I took the legs off of the desks so the kiddos could sit on cushions! 

This is my desk area.  I am very excited to have a mini fridge this year!  I found it for $20 at a garage sale this summer :)  The walls look bare, but rest assured...they will be covered with anchor charts before too long :)

Tucked away in the back of my room is my new editing & revising area and more room on the whiteboard for anchor charts of course!

I actually found these stools on the curb and decided to give them new life as alternative seating in my class this year.  The kids love anything different. Oh, and Howdy!  Yes, I'm from Texas!

My lesson plans are all set for next week!  Have a restful weekend and a great week at school if it is all starting up for you!

Natalie

Monday Made It: First Day of Inservice!

Hello!  Today was my first day back to work, and I. am. tired!  It was a great day though!  I love seeing everyone again after being away for such a long time:)  I have a few made its to share.


My first made it is a writing process clip chart I made to keep track of where my students are in writer's workshop.  You can put their names on clothespins, and have them move their clip each day to the step of the writing process they are on.  Since I teach 3 writing classes I number the clips and number the desks.  The kiddos just move the clip number that matches their desk number.  This makes my life so much easier!  I love being able to take a status of the class with a quick glance on the board.  I also included a feedback chart that I added into the process to make sure they are getting others opinions before they move on to the publishing phase.  You can find them here, here, and here!






My second made it is a fun fluency game with all 1,000 Fry words!  The Fry words are divided up on strips of paper in order beginning with the most frequent words.  Students take a big breath and say the word list all in one breath.  If they do it correctly, they move on to the next strip of words.  I have implemented stickers for each strip completed, and treasure box for each page they complete.  My students love practicing fluency this way, and it has been great for RTI.  You can read about One Breath Fluency Boxes and purchase them here, or here!




I made it through beginning of the year campus training today.   We have some positive changes happening, and  I'm really excited to get this year underway!
Have a great day back at school tomorrow!
Natalie

Five For Friday: Writer's Workshop Edition!

I am enrolled in an online writing professional development course. I had to explain how writing workshop is effective instruction, and my response just happens to be in 5 categories so here goes my 5 for Friday!

Why is writing workshop effective writing instruction?

The end goal of writing instruction is that students become effective writers.  Each step in the workshop framework gives students what is necessary to accomplish this goal.

Minilesson:

Tools in the toolbox

Mentor texts and teacher modeling provide examples for students to imitate in order to become an effective writer. Students are then given time to try out the new skill or strategy.

Independent Writing:

Learning to properly use tools

In order to become an effective writer, a person has to spend most of their time writing.  Writing about memories and ideas that are meaningful to students leads to more thoughtful writing and gives students a safe place to try out their new tools in a meaningful way.

Conferring:

Real time One-on-One

The beauty of conferring during workshop is that the teacher is able to praise, discuss, and give suggestions to students about their writing as they are writing.  This is so much more effective than taking their writing home and writing these things on their paper just to give it back to them the next day.  The teachable moment is lost!  Students being able to "see" their writing is invaluable.  

Conferring also steers minilessons.  As I am walking around and glancing at writings and conferring with students, I notice certain things that need to be addressed whole group during minilessons.

Sharing:

Giving them a purpose

Effective writing is written with an audience in mind.  You can hear this in the voice of the paper.  If students simply put away their writing after they spend all of that time and effort writing, they will stop putting so much time and effort into it because it is meaningless.  Sharing gives students a platform and a purpose.  They are able to gather ideas, hear what writing sounds like out loud, become a team, and learn to be confident in their abilities.

My Experience:

I am a product of both the traditional and workshop model classroom.  When I look back at my traditional elementary writing experiences they are pretty much non-memorable. Writing workshop is more effective than traditional methods of writing instruction because it incorporates authentic writing.  When writing is real it has meaning.  Students are able to speak deeper and develop who they are as a writer.  Stories flow more easily, so skills and strategies become more natural in their writing.

After reflecting on my writing workshop last school year, I created teacher and student binder dividers to help keep my writing workshop organized in one place for myself and my students. You can pick them up here!


I also use writing process clip charts which are available in my store here, here, and here!
I use these to keep track of where each student is in the process, and it gives them reminders of what to do at each step.




I hope this gave you some ideas to use in your own classroom!
Have a great school year:)
Natalie

Setting Up Writer's Notebooks for a Successful Writer's Workshop!

With a new school year firing up next week, I have been busy setting up my writer's workshop.  I teach 4th grade writing, and in Texas it is the first year our students take a state writing test.  It is very important for your students to enjoy writing, and not make the entire year all about the writing test.  

Writer's workshop sets the tone for a great writing environment that has a lasting impression on young writers.  The writer's notebook, in my opinion, is the most important tool in writer's workshop.  I am going to walk you through how I set up our notebooks.

What do I need?

spiral or composition notebooks
divider tabs
old magazines
scissors
glue


Where do I begin?

On day one we are usually busy sorting school supplies and getting organized for the new year with our new students.  I like to show the kiddos my writer's notebook and do a minilesson on how important writer's notebooks are to writers.

My notebook is well-loved to say the least!  I collect magazines and let the students spend the first day personalizing their notebook while I am busy collecting school supplies and getting organized. We also use this time to talk, and I answer any questions they have.  This usually gets them really excited about writing.

The inside of our notebooks are organized into sections.

Dedication
The very first page is a dedication page.  Student's dedicate their notebooks too!

Bellringer
My next section is reserved for our daily bellringer. We reserve 10 pages.   I give them grammar to work for the first 5 minutes when they first arrive in the classroom.  This gets them seated and started right away.

My Ideas
Our ideas section is the next section in our notebook.  We reserve 5 pages.  This is where students record writing ideas to use throughout the school year.  We begin a few pages the first week of school just to get them started, but it is very important to set aside time throughout the year for students to go back and record new writing ideas!

One year I had a student tell me that he didn't love anything.  That sparked the idea to record things that we do not like, ha!  Let me tell you, some of the best stories came from things they do not like!

My Writing

The next section of our notebook is reserved for their writing.  This is where we do all of our planning, rough drafts, revising, and editing.  One helpful tip:  When you teach a minilesson on a particular skill, have students go back to an old rough draft and try the skill.  This allows every student to practice the skill no matter where they currently are in the writing process! This is also a great way to teach students how to edit and revise.   Highlighters come in very handy!

  

Notes

I start my next section on the next to the last page of the notebook.  I have students work through their notebook backwards recording notes.  This gives them plenty of room for their writing section.   

Goals

The last section of our notebook is the goals section.  We only reserve the last page.  As students write, I walk around and spend a few minutes with different students looking at and discussing their writing.  This is our writing conference.  While I record student goals on our conference sheet, I think it is important for students to keep track of their personal writing goal as well.  For instance, if a student is using the word and several times throughout their story, we discuss the need for a variety of "glue" words aka transitions.  We make a list of words they could use instead of and in their goal section.  Then when they are revising, they can go to that section and revise for the word and.  I use my goal section to record minilesson ideas that I see need to be addressed based on what I see as I confer.

One last note.

Students do not publish every piece of writing.  When they do, their published writing goes on a separate sheet of paper and is placed in their writing binder. 

Well this pretty much sums up how we set up our classroom writing notebooks.   I hope this gives you some ideas on how to set up yours!  If you have any questions or any other great ideas for writer's notebooks please comment below.    :)

Happy notebooking!

Natalie

First Monday Made It (I hope I do this right!)

I have been following 4th Grade Frolics for a couple of years now! I have never been brave enough to actually link up until now.  Correct me if I do not do this right!

My first made it is actually a freebie from a larger set that I put together for this post!
You can pick up the freebie here .

 I use take-home shared journals in my classroom.  This is a homework version.  Junk Drawer Journal is my favorite. Students find something they can tape into the journal that brings back a memory, such as a movie ticket stub, and write about that memory.



 My students take these home on Mondays and return them on Fridays.  Each Monday they get a new journal to read through other student's writing and add their own.  This is a great way to let the students have an audience to write to, and it also allows the parents to see student writing throughout the year. I also wrote the covers similar to the Texas assessment prompts to give the kids practice.  This is a win win if you ask me!





My second made it is also a freebie in my TPT store.  I hang these parts of speech posters on my classroom cabinet doors as I teach each one through a minilesson.

The students then add sticky note examples to the cabinet doors all year.  It's a great way to help the students practice parts of speech all year long!



Made it number three is an I made it  through a very long day yesterday, and now you will understand why I posted this on Tuesday!  You see, I have four boys ranging in age from 10-18, and they keep me very busy!  My 16 year old, John has his driving test Wednesday, and he lost his permit over the weekend.  We. searched. everywhere.  Since we never found it, we headed up to the local DMV to replace his old permit Monday morning.  2 hours later we were set to go, and they actually even went ahead and did all of the paper work for Wednesday's test!  I was happy about that!  After that, we headed to the oral surgeon for my third in command, Sam.  He just got braces, and he has to have his eye teeth pulled down out of his gums (ouch!).  We were able to go over the procedure and schedule his appointment for September 3rd.  Keep him in your prayers that day :)  Last but not least, after a long day we headed over to none other than the orthodontist.  Yep, Sam also broke a bracket eating the wrong kind of chips this weekend!  I could have kissed the ground when I finally pulled into my driveway!

Well, that does it for me!  I hope I did this first link up right.  Please let me know if I didn't!
Have a great school year!
Natalie

It's The Final Countdown!

First blog post ever, and last week of summer! Well, at least I can check it off of my summer to do list! I have been following awesome teaching blogs and wanting to start my own for a long time, but I have never actually took the plunge until now! So, here goes....
Summer has flown by! I have been working in my 4th grade classroom, but I feel like my to do list just keeps growing! Anybody else feeling this way?

This is just a sneak peek into my new colors this year.  I hang my writing clip charts in a circle to show the kids that the process can fluidly go both directions as they write. You can pick them up at my tpt store here.  My room is slowly coming together!

I am super excited about the new year though. This will be my second year using the writer's workshop model, and I love it! I also get to teach Texas history this year. Does anybody else just love digging into history with the kiddos?  I will post more this week as I pull a few more things together. Thanks for stopping by!