Saturday, February 1, 2020

writing for readers

From adding detail earlier in our narrative writing to our current focus on elaboration- such as character feelings and exact words- the children have been transferring techniques and author's craft we've studied into their writing.

The writers have had to put it all together, using our check list from the beginning of our unit and taking on new writing challenges. This has been hard and rich work. All children have added more to their writing, have practiced writing a lead, have zoomed in on character feelings to bring their stories to life, and are writing more sentences with independence.

Our final celebration of our work will be the recording of the children reading their stories. They will have their draft and final piece to read from. Our narrative unit began by cultivating a culture of storytelling and practicing telling our stories like storytellers to our community oval. It will end with a final piece and a recording of each powerful and expressive story.

"It seems your unit has come full circle. No, full oval" - B. Shelley

Early in the week children were invited to use sticky notes to show a feeling. They wrote the feeling on their sticky note and put it on the page in their story, then used the feeling in their writing.

ZM feels sad getting ready for school so early in the morning.
LS thinks cutting into a piece of clay to try and get a toy egg is hard work and made her feel tired.
OH said going to Lynn's house made him feel super excited!
BP felt scared taking the magic carpet.
SP was excited for his practice.
IA felt happy when we welcomed Sam to our class.
CB was excited to go to a birthday party!

 

 

 











We are helpful reading partners and helpful writing partners. Using our visuals, children spent an entire writing workshop offering feedback and editing their work. They were surrounded by vowel charts and check lists, tools and sticky notes. One partnership said that they had enough time to check almost every word for a vowel in their writing- making their stories easier to read!

 

 

 











The children used pictures and words to bring their draft to life. There was an important part of their writing we needed to zoom in on- the beginning. Writers use the beginning of their stories to invite readers in. We noticed techniques used in some of our favorite stories; sound words, feeling, and exact words. For example, it wasn't one night it was one dark night. We practiced reading and hearing these beginnings and decided which beginnings made us want to read more.

Using white boards we practiced writing different beginnings for SH's story, using sound words (flip, flap) and detail (One day, instead of First). The children then used strips of paper to write new beginnings and tape them to their draft.

For two children the word invitation stood out during our mini lesson and they wrote an actual invitation instead of a lead or beginning! We saved their invitations to use in future dedications or when starting a non fiction piece with a question. We must celebrate all of the wonderful Kindergarten writing moments.


 

 










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