How to Writing: A Peek into Kindergarten

We finished week two of our journey on the Information Highway at my school!  Our whole school is doing an Information Highway Theme (to focus on informational text) for March is Reading Month.   You can read about my food themed week post here.

Lots of the teachers are using resources from my Information Highway product.

My post about week 2 will be ready soon, but today I'm sharing a peek at the how to writing that the kindergarten classroom across the hall did during our food themed week (which was our first week).

My friend, Nicole, is an amazing kindergarten teacher! She is truly a kind person and constantly impresses me with her dedication. Nicole works across the hall from me and was nice enough to share how her class used some of the resources I made to help them do a how to writing project.  The description and the photos below are from Nicole's kindergarten classroom. I only labeled them "Funky First Grade Fun" to protect the photos.

Day 1 -
-We read and discussed numerous books about pizza, discussed how to make pizza and looked at recipe books. 

-We talked about our favorite ingredients to put on pizza and made a class anchor chart of our ideas. We called it our Class Grocery List.  We listed our ideas and spent time talking about making a grocery list, instead of writing in complete sentences.

- After we made our Class Grocery List, I explained to the kids that I wanted them to think about their own personal favorite ingredients.  Then the students made an individual grocery list of the ingredients that they would need to make their own personal pizza.

*Sundance/Newbridge has a great level C book called Making Pizza.

Day 2 - We discussed the grocery list and talked about the fact that once you have all the ingredients to make something you need a recipe to know how to make it.  I reminded the students to focus on explaining how to make a pizza to their reader . We reviewed the steps whole group and then talked about that the next step would be to add their own toppings, so their writing would be their own. The students filled out the graphic organizer sheet from the Information Highway pack to help the students focus on first, then, next and last.

Day 3- We used the information from each section of the graphic organizer to write complete sentences about each step. The students also drew a picture of each step.

Later in the day we played a math game.  First they had to total the amount of ingredients that the had on their grocery list. They then played a penny, nickel exchange game to earn the ingredients to make their own real personal pizza. The students had to roll a die labeled with the numbers 1,2 and 3. Once they got 5 pennies, they exchanged the 5 pennies for a nickel. The students had to earn 1 nickel for each ingredient. Once they earned their ingredients they were able to make their own personal pizza by following the How to Make a Pizza directions they wrote themselves.

*Since Nicole is awesome, she purchased all the ingredients from their Class Grocery List anchor chart so the children would have all their favorite ingredients to make their own pizzas.

It was so much fun to hear the excitement in the little kindergarten voices as they told me about their writing project!  Thank you, Nicole, for sharing your week and your photos! As always, you rock!  So proud to call you my friend and so lucky to work with you.

Nonfiction Writing (Freebie Friday!)

We are finishing up our penguin research.  Well we're trying...but we have only had 2 days of school this week.  Seriously!  (President's Day + 2 snow/ice days)  I was actually able only to teach for one day.  I did Dibels testing all day on Wednesday and returned as Granny Gillow to teach on Thursday for our 100th day of school.  I'll post about that soon. It was SO much FUN!

During reader's workshop, we're finishing up our penguin research using my Nonfiction Penguin Unit.  You can read  a post with more details about that here.

During writer's workshop, my students are working on nonfiction writing.  I'm using the Lucy Caulkins unit to teach nonfiction writing.  My district has not officially adopted the program, so I use a combination of resources to teach different writing units.

Here is a reusable anchor chart that helps guide our planning.  

I laminate my reusable charts and use giant sticky notes to add the things myself or to let the students add things.  That allows us to reuse the same chart multiple times during the same unit and I can reuse it again in the future.

I don't know about your students, but my students struggle with spreading their story across the pages when writing nonfiction books.  When we are writing personal narratives or small moment stories, they are able to think of the story in terms of a beginning, middle and end.  That helps them spread their story across the pages.  That is not as easy for them when writing a nonfiction (teaching) book.

I made Sketch Across the Pages graphic organizers for my students to use to help them during the planning stage.  First, I ask them to tell the story out loud across their fingers.  Then they can choose either a 4 or 5 page graphic organizer to help them organize their ideas in the planning stage.  Some students return to me to get another copy of the graphic organizer if they realize they need to add more pages to their story.

If you click on the image below, you can check out the graphic organizers
and download your own copy if you'd like.  

I'm linking up with Teaching Blog Addict for Freebie Friday!

Since there is no school again today, maybe I'll get some things done at home.  Happy Friday!

My Plans for Teaching Informational Text

Hope you are all staying warm and safe if you have stormy weather at your house.  We had at least 12 inches of new snow yesterday (on top of the snow we already had on the ground). 

Not sure if we'll be going to school tomorrow either because wind chills are predicted to be around -40 degrees. What?!?!  When I do get back to school, I need to start working on teaching informational text features.  I use my Exploring Informational Text unit to help guide my reader's workshop lessons.  It goes well with Lucy Calkins unit: Nonfiction Chapter Books that we'll be working on for writer's workshop.

Then my students practice the new skills we learned about informational text features while we do a little penguin research.  I made the Nonfiction Penguin Unit last year and my students loved it.  You can check it out by clicking on the image below.  One of my goals in creating this unit for my students, was to provide a little more depth of knowledge (the focus of the common core standards) before each student writes his/her own animal research report in the spring.  This unit really helped me model how to research, while practicing the skills we learned in the Exploring Informational Text unit.

As I mentioned, in the spring my student write their own animal research report.  My students LOVE doing their own animal research reports each year!  They choose their own animal and then they use the Animal Research Book below as a guide for writing their reports.  You can check it out by clicking below.  It's my best seller on Tpt.

I guess I should bundle up and start the 4th big dig of the last 24 hours.  Fingers crossed that the city snowplow did not push the snow from the whole street into the end of my driveway again.  Stay warm!

Make Your Anchor Charts Awesome! (freebie)

This summer, I read a great book about anchor charts. I make tons of anchor charts with my students each year, but there are times when I feel frustrated if my students don't use a chart the way I planned for it to be used. So, when one of our professional development presenters recommended a book about anchor charts, I popped open my laptop and put it in my amazon shopping cart right away.

 The book is called Smarter Charts by Marjorie Martinelli and Kristine Mraz.

I took this book to the beach with me for 4 days in a row while we were on our camping trip. One of my favorite things about the book is that it is full of photographs of different charts.  I learned lots of new things, developed some new ideas and finished it feeling good about some of the components that I already use well when making anchor charts in my classroom. 

Here are some of the highlights from my notes from the book.  

You can click on the image to download a copy of my "notes" for yourself.

During my back to school shopping, I purchased two things to help me improve my anchor charts this year.  

1. large bright colored sticky notes (8 inches x 6 inches)

I purchased them at Staples when they were buy one get one free (but they were originally $12).

Using large post it notes will allow me to add things to charts without "messing up the whole chart".  Have you ever called a kid up to add something to a chart that took you forever to prepare and they write something like "socr" (soccer) on your carefully crafted amphibians chart?  Large brightly colored sticky notes to the rescue, "socr" gets peeled off and you say the nice teacher thing before you help the little guy/girl think of something more appropriate.  I will also use these brightly colored post its to add special vocabulary words or things that I want them to refer to later.

2. double sided tape

Using double sided tape will allow me to tape student work samples and or pictures of things related to what we are learning about to the chart.  The authors of the book stress the importance of creating charts in front of and with students. It is much faster to use a piece of double sided tape while building  an anchor chart than it is to glue all the pieces.

I have several reusable anchor charts in my classroom.  I prepare parts of the anchor charts in advance, laminate them and then let my students use sticky notes as we build a chart together during a lesson. You'll notice that I tend to use lots of scrapbook paper.

Here are a few of my reusable anchor charts.

This chart is from my Writing My Opinion pack. 

I took this picture before I laminated it...but it's laminated now. 

The pieces to make the chart are included in the pack.

This is my reusable story mapping anchor chart.

Long ago, I wrote a post about how I use this anchor chart.

You can read it and grab a story mapping freebie here.

This is my reusable Reading is Thinking chart.  

I use it for all kinds of different things.  If we are working on characters, I might have the children respond to something about a specific character on a post it note and add it to the chart.  If we are working on text to self connections, I have them write about a connection they had with a certain book.

My students share their post it note as they add it to the chart.

You can read an old post about how I use this chart and grab a main idea freebie here.

This is my reusable Writing Goals anchor chart.

I wrote a post about how I use it in my classroom here.

Obviously, not all of my anchor charts are reusable.  With the help of my sandy copy of Smarter Charts, I'm hoping to kick up the awesome factor while making and using anchor charts with my students this year.  

Now, I'm gonna kick off my slippers and get some sleep.

Funky Fun Freebie #2 (List Making Writing)

Thanks for helping me celebrate!  This post contains freebie #2 for this week...so if you missed #1 yesterday you should could go back and grab it.

During writer's workshop, I've been talking about the things that good writers do to help organize their ideas.  We did a mini-lesson this week about list making.  I started by showing them my special pink notebook.  It's really just an lined journal with a pink leather cover that holds my precious "to do" list.  I love to put little check marks by each of the things on my list.

I also read the book, Everything to Spend the Night  by Ann Whitford Paul.  It's about a little girl who takes "everything from A to Z" to her grandpa's house for a sleepover - but she forgets her pajamas. 

I wanted my students to practice making a list about a specific topic.  I modeled "everything to bake cookies" first. 

Then I had my students write a list about "everything to make hot chocolate".  They brainstormed ideas with a partner first (just in case someone has not had hot chocolate before).  Then we shared our ideas with the group in a circle before each child worked on his/her own list.  They were super excited to work on this project. They will be using the lists they made today to help them get started on their how to writing project tomorrow.

What my students don't know yet is that we will be having a hot chocolate and candy cane publishing party in two weeks!

You can click on the image below to download a copy of a few winter themed list writing pages.   

I'm off to drop my daughter off at dance class, walk the dogs and bake cookies!

I love cookies and comments! :) 

1500 Hooray! (5 Funky Fun Freebies)

I'm ALMOST to 1500 followers! I have not been posting as much as I want to this year, but I'm doing my best to post a couple times a week. I still remember when my goal was 15 followers. How funny is that!? That was back in the day when I could barely attach a document to my post, I had no Funky First Grade Fun facebook page and I had never heard of Tpt or Pinterest. My how things have changed in just a few years! 

 I owe a huge thank you to all of you! Thank you for following my blog. Thank you for liking my facebook page. Thank you for following my Tpt store. Thank you for making my Teachers Notebook shop one of your favorites. Thank you for pinning my ideas/products. Thank you for all of your purchases. And...thank you for the super nice comments that always make me smile!  I feel so lucky to have made so many new teacher friends.  I'm inspired each day when I read all of the blogs I follow.

Now, on to the celebration!

Here is the first freebie of the week.  You can click on the image below to download a copy.  If you do, please leave a comment to let me know you grabbed it. 

And please...someone send a friend so I really can get to 1500!  

Coming throughout the week...the other freebies.  Hope to see you back here soon.  Thank you for following my little old blog!  

Happy Monday (it's almost over so that seems ok to say now)!