The Power of Post Its: Writers' Workshop

We've been working on our All About books for about three weeks now.  The kids are getting really into it, but are all at completely different points in their books.  I have to be out twice (!!) this week for training and will miss writers' workshop so I tried my best to pre-teach so my kids can keep on chugging along in my absence.

Over the past two days during writers' workshop I made a point to sit with each child and plan out their entire books.  We worked together to decide what headers go on each page, where we should add splash pages, where to add the table of contents, etc.  It was so simple and has really helped the independence of my writers.  Once they have finished the page, the post-it goes in the trash and they keep on working.  This has made my job SO much easier.  I am constantly running around trying to meet with all my students at least every other day to check-in, but this way it is less necessary for me to get to each of them.  I think I will continue to use post-its to help my kids plan it out.

Here are a couple of examples on where we are with our writing.  I really want to publish this week and move onto poetry, but I don't want to rush them either... we'll see how far we get!  

The student writing about softball is a wonderful writer... I am always looking for ways to extend her writing.  With these non-fiction books, we discussed the importance of adding labels and realistic pictures. She was looking forward to working on this during the next writers' workshop.

Writing about Maple Syrup... don't you love it?  This student went on a spring break trip and watched how Maple Syrup was made and has been talking about it ever since... its been the perfect time to have her write about it!

I think next year more post-its will be on my wish lists :)

Happy Teaching!

Annie