Motivating Writers

I am linking up to Jivey for this post.  Check hers out at Ideas By Jivey.  She is looking for ways to motivate writers... which seems to be getting harder and harder as the year comes to a close.  

My kids write two main times during the day.  When they come in, they write in their morning journal (which you can buy at my TPT store!)  My kids can start arriving at 7:30, but the bell doesn't ring until 7:50 (and I don't normally start the day until 8:00) so they have ample time to write in the morning.  At the beginning of the year, its hard for them to write a lot of details, but when I introduced Author of the Day the motivation increased.  I choose three students at random to share each morning.  The class then votes on who they think wrote most like an author (we talk about interesting details, captured the readers attention, etc.). 

The student who is chosen as Author of the Day has their writing displayed on the board for the day.  They also get to sit in the rocking chair during dear time (wow!) and recently I was given these awesome pencils that they also get to use for the day.

The Author of the Day has really motivated my kids during their morning journal time.

As for Writers' Workshop... the kids are pretty self-motivated.  I think that when I share good examples and take pictures of good writing, that motivates them to want to do well.  I don't have any tricks there, just a positive learning environment during writing and lots of great mentor texts :)

Happy Writing!
Annie

We Rocked This Year Linky Party!

As the year comes to a close, it is a good time to reflect on all of the positives for the year!  I am attempting my first linky party!   Share how you rocked this year :)  We all deserve to be proud of our work, especially after a year well done.

Link Up!

This is my first attempt at this!  Please link up to how you rocked this year and spread the word! I want to hear what you did this year that rocked!

Feel free to leave any tips if I did this wrong :)

Writers' Workshop

Last year I received training on Lucy Calkins' Writers Workshop.  At first, I have to admit, I had no interest in it.  I loved my theme writing, my craft/writing activities, I loved it all... there is no way I was going to let the kids write about whatever they wanted.  I mean, when would we write our "How to Catch a Leprechaun" Books?

Well, it only took me a couple of units to get over it.  I have to admit, getting started on Writers' Workshop was a little intimidating and I am not sure if I do it completely right, but it works for me.  In case you are thinking about trying it, I strongly encourage you to!  It is actually a whole lot less prep than what I use to do... an that's never a bad thing!

I start every writers' workshop with a mini lesson from the unit.  I have spent the year planning units all at once... I create a learning target for each mini lesson and put it in a presentations.  Next year, it will be done and ready to go :)  My goal though for next year is to add more mentor texts... so any contributions to that would be greatly appreciated!  After I do the mini lesson and focus them in on my learning target, I let them write.  

I turn on classical music for writing time.  This keeps them quiet and working hard.  As they work, I walk around and try to meet with as many students as I can.  I like to see them once every two days.  I carry around a pack of post-its with me so I can jot down their goals and what I like about their work.  If I see something I LOVE, I stop the class for an inspiration break and we listen to that students' writing.  Sometimes we do gallery walks too.  This is where they put their favorite page on top of their desk and then they all walk around, complimenting each other.  They love it!

Towards the end of our writing time, I start packing them up.  I choose about 3 students each day to share.  If the kids are really into their writing, I partner them up so they can all share their writing with someone.  

I don't let the students keep their writing folders in their desk.  I keep them in a bin and pass them out during writing.  This may just be a control thing for me!  One thing I don't think I do correctly is the timeline.  My students work on one book for the entire unit... then we all publish at the end.  This has worked for me and I don't see it inhibiting their writing, but it may be something you have to try.

Here are a couple of screen shots of our recent Letter Writing Unit.  This is my best unit so far... I have mentor texts, goals, and examples.  

Happy Writing!

Annie

Promethean Boards or Smartboards or Neither?

I have been busily working this year creating units for my Promethean Board.  I LOVE technology so I try to use it whenever I can... so of course I love my Promethean Board. 

This year I have been blessed and don't have to turn in lesson plans so I tried to plan so it would be helpful to me in the future.  I planned a unit at a time and used my flipcharts as my plans.  Each day, I posted a learning target... a mini lesson... and then the day's activity. I did this for writing and math this year and I think I am going to be SO grateful next year when I already have all of this work done.  I have thought about putting some stuff on TPT, but I feel like a lot of people don't have the Promethean Boards?  So what do you have??

Just to give you an idea of what I am talking about... here are a couple of pictures of my money math unit:

 Our money unit is 4 weeks... approximately 20 days IF I stay on task!  I used our state curriculum to identify 20 learning targets so I could make sure I tackled each one.  After I identified the learning target, I created a quick activity to teach that target.  After I do the mini lesson, the students go into that week's math centers... below:

So I have always PLANNED on using math centers, but never could quite get it going.  I am happy to say that this year I have finally done it and I will never go back!  Thanks to pinterest and TPT, ideas are so much easier to find!  Each week I have different math centers... this was the first week where the goal was just to identify money.  The first center is a coin book where they write about characteristics of the coin.  The second one, Money Maps, has them sort their coins.  The Gumball Race has them roll a dice (which I put different amounts on) and they had to color in the corresponding gumball.  I have a portaportal account with different math sites.  My kids get on there and do the money activities.  During the first week, I also put out all of my foreign money I have collected and let them examine it, sort it and talk about it.  Finally, the last group is with me.  They are grouped based on ability so I can work on specific skills with them.

This is an example of a mini lesson.  This was actually the first day and the goal was just to identify the coins.  I split them into teams.  I pulled the coin out of the money bag and then if it was their team, they had to scream ME.  I put it in the correct column... the first coin that had five in their column won.  My goodness, they loved it-- so silly in my eyes, but anything you can make into a game :)

So I guess my question is... would you find these useful?  Does anyone else plan like this?  

Happy Tuesday!

Annie

May Goals... A Little Late, I Know!

Before I do my link for the May Goals, I want to comment on my day.  Today was "D" Day for our ABC Countdown... so it was dance party day.  This was really fun!  Youtube is currently shut down at our school for testing, but I used Dirpy to download the youtube videos at home.  Then I put it in a powerpoint and viola, there it was!  I inserted 7 Just Dance Kids videos.  We did them between activities today.  It worked great as a behavior management too because if they weren't on their best behavior during that subject area, they couldn't participate in that dance party!  It worked out for most of them, a couple had to sit out after math, but we were doing new centers so sometimes they have trouble focusing.  So if you want a fun break, use Dirpy to download those fun youtube videos.  Using Dirpy also allows you to avoid the horrible advertisements that can come along with the youtube videos.

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I think I am getting the hang of this linky thing... I think!  Correct me if I am wrong, so I am here to link up to I Heart Recess for her monthly goals Link Party!  So here it goes:

Personal: So I got married to my wonderful husband back in November... but we had a little snag in our marriage that I think has taken precedence over making a scrapbook.  Apparently in the state of Virginia you need permission to have an out-of-state minister marry you.  Who knew?  We had my husband's pastor growing up marry us... from Wisconsin.  Just this past week, we finally received the news the court recognized our marriage... and trust me, this was not without a big headache!  Now that we are "officially" hitched, I need to get a scrap book together!  Here's a peak at a picture that will be in it :)

It really was the best day ever :)

Health: I really need to start working out again!  In the fall, I hurt my achilles and after being in a boot for 4 weeks, haven't really been able to run long distance since.  The bad part for me is I have seen that it hasn't really affected my weight (I am addicted to my fitbit pedometer!) so I have no motivation to workout... but I do need to tone those muscles up so my goal is 4 times/week do some lifting and such.  Let's see if I actually do it!

Blogging: Well I am new to the blogging world... and I am trying really hard to figure it all out and follow people.  I have found such good ideas from these blogs already!  I really hope I can provide ideas that other people can use, but first I need followers! So 50 is the goal for the month, can I do it?  Help me out... I promise I'll give ya good stuff to read!

School: Do you get in that mood where you can't wait until NEXT school year?  Well I have gotten into that mindset.  I really want to do more thematic stuff next year.  I tackled the writing curriculum and math curriculum this year and I think I really made my teaching better... but I think adding themes to each week will make it more exciting for the kids-- so thats my goal!

Fun: My husband and I LOVE to travel.  We normally do a big trip overseas each year, but with the wedding we can't quite make that work this year so we are staying stateside.  We are taking a 24 day southeast Roadtrip.  I want to hit all 50 states by the time I turn 30... after this road trip, I'll have 5 left (North Dakota, Washington, Nebraska, Alaska and Hawaii).  I am excited for our roadtrip... New Orleans, Savannah, Florida, Memphis, Nashville, etc... but we have made NO plans.  I need to get on that!!

So those are my May goals!  I'll let you know how that goes at the end of the month.  Its a busy month, but summer is just one month away for me!!

Cheers to a Good Month!

Annie

Currently... My First Link Up!

This is the first linky part I have done!  I am getting the hang of this blogging thing.  Anyone out there have any more tips for me?  I'd love any help to make my blog better!

Thanks to Farley for this link up!

Happy Friday!

Annie

What a day!

You know when you have a day that is just on?  Today was that day!  After 3 gloomy rainy days, the sun was shining, our ABC countdown was starting today and we were gearing up to publish our All About books.  It was going to be a good day from the start and it was (despite my lack of planning time today!)

First, the ABC countdown.  I want to thank DeAnne at First Grade and Fabulous for the idea to do an ABC countdown.  I had to adjust a bit because food is not allowed in our county, but the kids LOVED day 1... work with a stuffed Animal day.  The kids got to pick a stuffed animal to sit with them all day and surprising they didn't play with them or let them distract them.  It was great.  To view all of my countdown, you can visit my TPT store here.  Its a freebie :)  Tomorrow is Backwards Day!

Our All About books are set to publish tomorrow!  Two of my students published today.  Before they publish, I pull the rubric I use up on the board and I direct them to review it themselves before coming to me to publish their final book.  They normally go up there and look it over for 5 minutes or so, but I don't think they ever went through their book as much as I wanted them to. 

This time, I printed off the rubric and made them self-evaluate themselves.  They took 15-20 minutes to go over this by themselves.  They were actively looking for mistakes, looking up words, re-reading sentences... it was GREAT!  Here are a couple of pictures of my two boys who finished today as they worked through their rubric.

I think the most rewarding part of today was watching the child whose writing is above.  This child hated writing just a few short months ago.  He was SO excited to publish his book today and he was so happy with his work.  He has come a really long way in the past couple of months and I am so proud of him.  His book even had chapters.  His whole book was about transportation, but he had a chapter on trains, cars, planes and boats.  Such a good teaching moment :)

Last thing with our writing.  The other day we reviewed the idea of a glossary... just in case some kids felt motivated to attempt that.  I was happily surprised to see this little one planning his glossary.  He underlines important words with these squiggly lines he invented and he plans to define them at the end... yes!  Another writing victory :)

Today's writing time ended after an hour and fifteen minutes... yes an hour and fifteen minutes my first graders worked silently on writing!  And once again... they got mad at me when writing time was over.

Before I close... did you know it was administrators' appreciation day?  This is only the second school I have taught at, but we didn't celebrate this at my old school.  My kids each wrote a letter to the principal/AP and we bound it in a book.  One gem was...

"Can we have two weeks off?  I'll give you five bucks!"

Happy Hump Day!