Writer's Workshop

In my district we use Lucy Caulkins' Writer's Wrokshop for our writing curriculum.  I love the way she introduces the idea of writing to students.  Even in our seventh week, we have grown so much as writers.  

Here are some of the anchor charts I have used this year for my eager writers.

 

I introduced this one when we started writing on the second day of school.  We started with pictures, then we started adding letters by labeling, then we started adding words.

I used this one when we started talking about labeling.

 This one has helped with writing actual letters and words.  It has really helped a lot.

 I also give each student a writing folder.  This is mine.  It's gigantic!

In Lucy Caulkins, she has the teacher place a green sticker and red sticker on each side of the folder.  The green sticker is for pieces that can still be worked on and the red side is for pieces that are complete.  Here is the inside of my folder with pieces that I model for the class.

Because of the differences in writing abilities, Lucy Caulkin's encourages teachers to have a variety of paper out for the different needs in the classroom.  The paper varies based on the amount of space for sketching and the number of lines for writing.  Here is how I store my paper.

There is a list of my students attached to the side of the paper tray with a small sticker dot next to their name.  The sticker dot tells them what tray to get paper from.  When a student needs to start choosing from a new tray, then I cover their old dot with a new sicker.  Easy peasy!   

To organize my writing conferences, I created this chart with the days of the week and student pictures.

Each student meets with me once a week.  On the days they don't meet with me, they work with their writing partner.  Their partner is located on the chart next to them.  Writing partnerships allow writers to still get help and support even if they cannot meet with me that day.

After I model my writing then I call my conferences to my table.  Those students go back and start on a piece of writing.  Then I ask the rest of my students to point to their partner and get started.  While we're working I play classical music and then start conferring with the students at my table.  While conferring I use my conferring tool kit.

It's stocked with everything I need to prepare young writers, including letter formation guides, letter/sound pictures, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, date stamps, spider legs, marker boards and my favorite thing ever

OUR DEDICATION STAMP!  

This is used when we publish a piece and want to dedicate our writing to someone.

I truly love using this writing program.  I saw amazing growth last year in my kinders.  One goal I have for this year is to try and get some parent volunteers to come in during our 40 minute writing block to help some of the partnerships.  The more help, the better!  This is definitely a time to utilize volunteers if you have someone who really wants to be in the classroom.

Happy writing!