Jumpstarters for Writing

I've always used good children's books in my classroom to teach skills whenever I could. Although I've shared most of the following before, they are still valuable resources for jumpstarting both whole group writing and writing station work. Use the Amazon Affiliate links below to find the books.

The kids LOVE any of the I Spy books. They can write a story or description of any of the items in the awesome pictures. (I also use the books to teach main idea and details). These pics unlock even the toughest writer's block! So many teachers are using pirates in their classrooms, that I wanted to include Can You See What I See? Treasure Ship. You'll get lots of pirate stories if you use this as a prompt.





A Circle of Friends, by Giora Carmi,  just begs the children to add words to the beautiful artwork. Friends are an important topic of choice, so be sure to include this one.



Share Graeme Base's Animalia at the writing center to show your students how to use colorful words in their writing. Younger students can use the sentences as models for writing alliterative sentences for the beginning sound they are studying. The sentences are also great to use for picking out parts of speech.



Any of Barbara Lehman's picture books inspire even the most reluctant students to write. Students can write about the stories told in pictures in The Red Book, Rainstorm, and Museum Trip or can pick just one of the illustrations to describe. (Great for making predictions and inferences!)







istvan banyai's wordless picture books could inspire a year's worth of writing! Show the students Zoom, Re-Zoom, and The Other Side and step back and watch inspiration hit!







The simple text of The OK Book, by Amy Krovise Rosenthal, is a wonderful model for students to follow to write OK books about themselves. Once they have done that, use the format to write OK sentences about the topics you are studying in Science and Social Studies.



You own't be able to put Ooops, by Arthur Geisert, down long enough to leave it in the Writing Station! This book is great to guide students in an ongoing story or chapter book. Does the house fall? (Another predictions/inferences favorite.)



The pictures in Black and White, by David Macaulay, tell two different stories. Let students pick one story line to follow.



And last, but not least, go right now and get Meanwhile, by Jason Shiga, if you do not already own a copy. You might want to go ahead and get two while you are ordering, because your kids are going to looooove this book. You choose your own ending to each page of the book. The story lines are practically infinite!



Happy Writing!

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Super Heroic Writing Prompts for Back to School

Looking for some writing prompts for the first week of school?

Here are five days worth of prompts featuring cute super heroes from MelonHeadz. I just love her graphics. If you haven't visited her page, you should stop everything and go RIGHT NOW!

Click on the pic below to grab the prompts.

If you'd like enough prompts for the first nine weeks of school, visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store by clicking HERE. You'll get a full color version to display on your board for the entire class to see, plus smaller black and white copies to paste into writing journals. You can also put either version on a ring in your writing station.

If you'd like the prompts, but want a different theme, leave me a comment below. I can't do a free version, but will be glad to see if I can make you one to purchase.

Creepy Creatures Freebie

Your kids will love these cr~eeeee~py creatures I found at Walgreens today.

55 creatures for $2.99

I'm going to put them in my Writing Station and let the kids use them to write a story. The freebie includes the directions and a graphic organizer to help the students plan their story and a rubric to let them know how they will be graded. Click on the pic below to download the file.

 Leave a comment and let me know how your creepy stories turn out!

How Do I get it All In?

School starts Monday and I have to get my daughter packed up for her return to college on Sunday......a wedding tomorrow morning.....birthday party tomorrow night.....have to cook birthday lunch for my sister/going away party for my daughter on Sunday... Why does the outside world expect to go on when teachers need every spare moment getting their rooms ready????

We did our home visits this afternoon. I saw most of my kiddos. They all looked a foot taller since I last saw them as second graders in May!

My room is close to being ready. I've posted a few pics to share. Many of the things you see either came from ideas or free downloads on blogs, are from pins on Pinterest, or are things I've been using and have just re-worked.

This is my bucket fillers chart. I've ordered free business cards from VistaPrint to use to fill the buckets. You can't tell by the picture, but the sign is held up by Scotch Restickable Shapes. One of the walls in my room is dry wall and we cannot use anything that makes a mark on the wall to hang materials.  These little babies are SUPER for hanging!

The other sides of my filing cabinets hold my Poetry Station. The task cards are in magnetic photo pockets. The file folder holds different response forms and bookmarks the kids need to complete the tasks. Our poetry books are in the tub on the floor. It also holds a couple of rhyming dictionaries. The blue magnetic pocket holds copies of the weekly poem for the students to glue in their poetry notebooks. The markers and glue sticks are gathered in a shower caddy held up by suction cups. Magnetic poetry tiles and different response cards are also hanging on the cabinets.

This is our Word Wall. Looks bare now, but it will be filled up soon! The pirates are sticky wall decals I ordered off Amazon. You can see a little of my classroom library to the left. The lamp (from Target) has a plain blue shade that I added more pirate wall decals to.

The last pic for tonight is my Writing Station. I replaced the cards on another writing center I purchased from Lakeshore. The plastic pockets hold some of the materials needed to complete the task cards clipped to the board. I still have to add the rubric sheets. Other materials are on the shelves under the center. There are dry erase boards, dictionaries, different kinds of paper, pictures for prompts, I Spy books, wordless picture books, and lots of other goodies to inspire writing. I shared a list of some of these books in an earlier post. The circles above the center are dry erase circles that I can write messages on. These are from Office Depot, but I've seen lots more at different stores selling supplies for dorm rooms. This is still that dry wall side that I have to be careful with.

Hope you are having fun getting your room ready!

Super Books for the Writing Station

I have just about finished setting up my Writing Station in my classroom and hope to post pictures soon. I wanted to share some of the books I place in the Station to help jumpstart the kids' writing.

The kids LOVE any of the I Spy books. They can write a story or description of any of the items in the awesome pictures. (I also use the books to teach main idea and details). These pics unlock even the toughest writer's block! So many bloggers are using pirates in their classrooms this year, that I wanted to include Can You See What I See? Treasure Ship. You'll get lots of pirate stories if you use this as a prompt.

Share Graeme Base's Animalia at the writing center to show your students how to use colorful words in their writing. Younger students can use the sentences as models for writing alliterative sentences for the beginning sound they are studying. The sentences are also great to use for picking out parts of speech.

Any of Barbara Lehman's picture books inspire even the most reluctant students to write. Students can write about the stories told in pictures in The Red Book, Rainstorm, and Museum Trip or can pick just one of the illustrations to describe. (Great for making predictions and inferences!)

istvan banyai's wordless picture books could inspire a year's worth of writing! Show the students Zoom, Re-Zoom, and The Other Side and step back and watch inspiration hit!

 A Circle of Friends, by Giora Carmi,  just begs the children to add words to the beautiful artwork. Friends are an important topic of choice, so be sure to include this one.

You own't be able to put Ooops, by Arthur Geisert, down long enough to leave it in the Writing Station! This book is great to guide students in an ongoing story or chapter book. Does the house fall? (Another predictions/inferences favorite.)

The simple text of The OK Book, by Amy Krovise Rosenthal, is a wonderful model for students to follow to write OK books about themselves. Once they have done that, use the format to write OK sentences about the topics you are studying in Science and Social Studies.

The pictures in Black and White, by David Macaulay, tell two different stories. Let students pick one story line to follow.

And last, but not least, go right now and get Meanwhile, by Jason Shiga, if you do not already own a copy. You might want to go ahead and get two while you are ordering, because your kids are going to looooove this book. You choose your own ending to each page of the book. The story lines are practically infinite!

Happy Writing!

Photo Ideas for Classroom

I take a lot of pictures in our class to document our learning. Walgreens' website has an option to make a photo collage that is 8 1/2 x 11. I use pictures to show what we did during a project. The first picture below shows our school secretary helping our class decorate a pumpkin to look like our principal. We gave her a copy as a thank you for helping us. The second shows off our symmetry pictures. (Sorry about the quality...a picture of a picture doesn't always work!) I also use the collage to teach main idea. The students help me come up with the main idea of the pictures and we use that for the caption.

I also put only one picture in the collage to get a poster. We use these as anchor charts. The kids refer to them all the time.

A sentence

 must start with a capital letter, 

 end with punctuation, 

and make sense!

The students in the posters are acting out the motions we make when we talk about sentences.

The next four posters show our motions and facial expressions when we are discussing the different types of sentences. 

I keep extra copies of pictures at the Writing Station to use for prompts.

Free Writing Station Labels with Pirate Theme

Here is a link to my first attempt at uploading to Google Docs. I wanted to share my Writing Station labels with a pirate theme. There are eight different labels, as well as the Header. I hope you will enjoy using them. It's my late attempt to join the Christmas in July Linky!

Writing Station Pirate Labels

                                                        

(I wasn't able to get the Google Doc to show in my post. Any ideas?)