Making Friendly Letter Writing Fun and Engaging!

As education, and the skills that students need in our modern and technological world shift and change, writing, and all communcation skills, remain vital for elementary aged children to learn. 

I LOVE teaching writing! 

I think that writing, when done right, is an incredibly engaging and enjoyable activity for students and an excellent diagnostic tool and measure of student growth and understanding for teachers. If you'd like to see how I usually set up the writing center in my classroom (and also see a few must have resources) CLICK HERE to check out one of my previous posts. 

One type of writing that I always teach my students is friendly letter writing.

I love how friedly letters can be incorporated so easily in all topics. Students love how letters can reach an authentic audience and even on occasion, recieve real-life responses. One year that I was teaching second grade in Guatemala, during a unit on ocean conservation, my students wrote letters to a local restaurant that was serving shark fin soup. This idea was brought to me by a student after they ate there with thier family and noticed the dish on the menu. 

Having an authentic audience is a super engaging hook for students. 

A different year, when I was teaching in Germany, there was a senior living home near the school. Before our winter break the students wrote letters to the senior citizens to brighten up thier holidays! They were incredibly appreciative and many even wrote replies. My students loved receiving mail and the knowledge that they were making an impact on the community with their letter writing. 

Typically, before starting the writing process, I introduce mentor texts about letter writing as read alouds. There are so many great picture books out there that model how friendly letters are used and provide examples of letter format. A few of my favorites are below:

Some other great options are:

Sincerely Emerson 

By Emerson Weber 

This book is great for writing thank you notes or within a unit about community helpers. It also would tie-in nicely with a pen pal project.

Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type

By Doreen Cronin

This is a classic story for younger students. It includes very simple letter format and is highly engaging and funny!

Dear Mrs. LaRue Letters from Obedience School

By Mark Teague

This story is great for older elementary students. The written voice in this book is very strong and it provides a opportunity to talk about reliable narrators. 

Dear Dragon

By Josh Funk

This book would be perfect to introduce students to pen pal letter writing. There are some great examples of how to share information about yourself and how to ask questions about another person.  

Once students are familiar with how letters are used and how they generally look, I like to do at least one lesson on the basic pieces of a letter. The formatting is what makes a letter a letter! 

Once students are ready to write, I find that using fun writing templates adds an imaginative feel to the experience. It's almost like playing dress up, but with writing! I've created a few templates, that I introduce to the students early on in the year, and then leave out in my writing center for them to use during Daily 5 or writer's workshop. 

CLICK HERE to check them out in my TeachersPayTeachers store. 

These templates often help reluctant writers get started and a great way to jump-start some letter writing ideas!

The Project Files - World Changers Project!

Over the past few years, I've found myself drawn more and more to interdisciplinary teaching and a more project based approach.

And thus The Project Files were born!

This World Changers project is one of my favorite file projects to date! It fits in with our PYP unit How We Organize Ourselves. In this unit we focus on our concentric communities and our roles in them. We finish the unit by designing a community service project based on a problem that we identified. One of the stepping stones on the way to that culminating project is our World Changers Project. To inspire our eventual community service project, we look at what famous people have done to change the world in the past. Click here to see it in my TPT store!

I usually begin this project with an exploration of the biography section in the library. With our librarian,
Ms. Monica, we introduce the child to what a biography is and where the section can be found in the
library. Then I give the students free rein to explore the books. At this point I haven’t told them about
the project but am just giving them space to explore. If they find someone they like, I have them write
down the person's name and what they did to have a book written about them. 

This library session can look a bit crazy as the books end up all over the tables, with students flipping through them and showing friends the people they found, but they’re incredibly engaged!

I’ve found that titles like the People Who Changed the World and Who Was series, Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls and Stories for Boys Who Dare to Be Different are particularly engaging for my students. 

Once we’ve done all of our exploring, I explain the premise of the project. I give each student their
own project folders and we talk through the steps together. 

We then go back to our exploration list and each child chooses one person to actually research. From there, we check out books from the library and investigate pre-approved websites to fill out the script page in our folders. After a quick check from me, students then move on to the next section.

Two excellent biography websites are: Ducksters Biographies and Mr. Nussbaum Biographies.

Students go back to the books and websites to plan out their person’s background and outfit. I tell my kids that the outfit should look like something thier person would have worn and should be made of things they already own. I try to avoid the miscommunication that they need to buy something for any of our projects! The background should show an important setting from their life. 

After planning, the next step is to paint the poster. I never fail to be impressed with the amazing backgrounds that my students create! Check them out!

For those of you who don't know who Ashley Fiolek is, she is the first deaf motocorss racer. I hadn't heard of her until this project!

Getting the dried poster attached to the kids is often a bit of an issue. I’ve found the best way to keep
the poster from flopping is to securely tape a meter stick to the back. I then pop four holes in the
poster and thread ribbon through, so the poster can be worn much like a backpack. 

On presentation day, I ask other teachers to sign up for 15 minute slots and I have about 4 kids
present to each classroom. We talk about presentation skills beforehand. Things like: practicing
reading your script over and over, standing up straight, using your best presentation voice, holding
our folder so it doesn’t cover your face. 

As this is one of our first presentations of third grade, the kids are incredibly nervous and hugely
elated when they successfully present! This year I had one boy tell me triumphantly, “That’s the
biggest thing I’ve done in my life so far!” Engagement levels are incredibly high for this project and
the immediate feedback and boost they receive from the applause of other classes makes this a
favorite!

After the presentations I use the rubric on the back page to grade their research and presentation
skills. I included the one that I use, as well as an editable version so you can tailor it to exactly what
you need!

Interested in using this project in your classroom?? Click here to grab it from my TPT store!

Classroom Set Up 2019-2020

A new school year is upon us!

One of my favorite things to do each year is set up my classroom. I love seeing the change from boring old grey, sad space to bright, colorful learning environment!

Here are my 'before' pictures:

One of the challenges with this classroom is that is pretty small for 24 students. So I have to get creative with how I organize the desks and other furniture. I do not believe that students learn best in rows, so my class is always set up in table groups. But with this space, I've split some of my table groups into what we call workstations. These are 2-desk table groups scattered around the edges of the room.

I use modified flexible seating in my class. 

This means that I don't assign seats, and students are free to move around to where they learn best. Some kids know that they do better with less distractions at one of the workstations. I also have a bunch of light stools that can be moved from place to place as we need them. I picked these up from Walmart and they were only 80 pesos (about 4 dollars) a piece.

Word of Warning: I have had dads come in and try to sit on these stools and totally fall off! I don't think they are really built for adults...

Another one of my beliefs that features prominently in my classroom space, is that we should be learning in a cheerfull, pleasant environment.

Our classroom should be somewhere we want to be!

I try to make the room bright and include touches to make it feel more home-y and less institutionalized. In order to make the room brighter, I hit up The Dollar Tree when I'm visiting the states in the summer, and when I'm back in Mexico, I go to Waldo's.

This year, I hit up the party section and got a whole bunch of those tissue paper balls and flowers. I also picked up some bright fabric storage boxes and some plastic buckets for table supplies.

These are cheap and useful ways to bring some color (and storage) into the room and you would not believe the difference it makes!

Another of my favorite ways to make the room feel good, is by bringing in some life! I really CAN NOT handle a class pet, so plants it is!

This year I got one pothos or spider plant for each table group. I figured those were pretty hardy plants that could survive occasional bouts of forgetting to water them... The kids love them and occasionally I find one of them gently stroking the leaves as they work.

I also created a little "zen area" for myself on the corver of my desk. I included a tiny succulent, a little cactus lamp I made last year, and the oil diffuser. My classroom is always warm and I found that it can get quite stinky after recess. A few drops of peppermint in the diffuser and the room becomes pleasant-to-the-sniff once again!

Now, let me give you a quick tour of the different areas of the room! Starting with our front door...

Every year, I print out a life size picture of me using the cringily-named website Rasterbator.net. This free website is amazing! You can upload any image and decide how big you want it to be, the website then splits the image over multiple pages and you can print it out of your normal printer and then glue it together to make a poster sized image! I change up my speeck bubble message every few weeks. 

Then we move on to...

And there we are! A beautiful, welcoming, bright classroom!

How to get your students writing...And loving it!

 

I've been at an international school in Mexico for the past two years now and one thing I noticed at the beginning of this school year was that my students weren't getting as much practice free writing as they needed to. Sure, they were all getting writing instruction during our mini lesson and they were completeing the required writing assignments, but many of them weren't regularly choosing Work on Writing during Daily 5 and I could see some of their basic writing skills slipping because of lack of use.

I really wanted them engaged and excited by writing!

To do this, I looked into what I had already set up for Work on Writing and then thought about what changes I could make.

My Work on Writing table has gone through a few different iterations through the years, but it always has a bunch of interesting materials, like special monthly pencils, fact cards, prompts, writing templates, and list papers. Most of this stuff was suggested by this amazing Second Story Window blog post. Check it out here! Second Story Window Monthly Writing

I also always make space for my Write It Out! writing template pages. These are fun pages that encourage even reluctant writers to think of ideas and get started! They are especially good for students who become overwhelmed looking at a page of blank lines.

Throughout the years, all my second and third graders have loved these templates! 

Writing Templates

- Write It Out! Blank Poster Writing Templates

- Write It Out! Blank Letter Writing Templates

- Write It Out Blank Recipe Writing Templates

- Write It Out Blank Newspaper Writing Templates

- Write It Out Blank Comic Strip Writing Templates

But, like I said earlier, all this wasn't enough!

About halfway through the year, I made some changes. I created a set of journal prompts and and put one, or two, up each week in the Work on Writing center. It become one of our weekly nonegotiables that the prompt had to be answered in paragraph form, worked on during Daily 5, and be ready to be checked by Friday.

To my surprise, my students LOVED it and we never had a single complaint! 

The 80 total prompt cards are a mix of recount, reflection, description, appreciation, and persuasive writing. They are varied enough that the students don't get bored with the questions. Click here or the picture to see this product in my TPT store!

Another change I made, was that each of these weekly prompts had to be rainbow edited. I know there are many different rainbow editing versions out there, but I created one for my classroom that fits with what I am looking for in my students' writing. Click here or the picture to get my version for free!

I find that using the Rainbow Editing helps my little friends who make careless mistakes to catch themselves, and it provides a clear way for me to diagnose those students who aren't remebering concepts taught earlier in the year. 

**cough, cough, capitalizing proper nouns, cough, cough**

Another strategy I added is the our You Try, I Check chart. This is basically just a T-chart where students write a word they are struggling to spell on thier side of the chart, and any time I have a free second during the day, I wander over to check it. If their word is spelled correctly, I just put a check mark next to it. If the word is spelled incorrectly, I circle it and rewrite it on my side of the chart. Any time the chart become full, usually after a week or so, we just put up another sheet of chart paper ontop of the old one.

It's quite interesting to see the progression of words that they want assistance spelling through the year!

As a part of the rainbow editing process, students have to circle words they may have spelled wrong. I find that this makes them more aware of their spelling and helps them to focus on using the spelling patterns that we learn. The You Try, I Check chart gives them another avenue to correct their spelling and outside of the dictionary and keeps them from breaking into my reading conferences. 

As a side note, my students took offense to the teacher centric language of the chart title and we've been trying to think of a new catchy name for it. Please feel free to let know if you guys can come up with anything better! 

So, in summation, here are all the different cogs and wheels that I keep spinning during independant writing to keep my kids interested and motivated to practice their writing skills during Daily 5. 

Enjoy!

Mini Post: Classroom Sound Signals!

First of all let me apologize for my hiatus from this blog. I made a move from Guatemala City to Mexico City and from second grade to third grade and much of my focus this year was taken up by the transition.  Getting used to a grade and a new curriculum is exhausting! But now that I’ve completed a full year, I feel like I’ve got an idea of what I’m going to do differently in this upcoming year.

As a part of this, I’ve been setting up a few things over the course of this summer and wanted to share them with you all in a series of mini-posts!

Annnnnnd my first mini-post is about my classroom….

I loooove using sound signals in my class. First, it saves my voice (I talk enough throughout the day!) and second, the kids enjoy it.

It’s a special privilege if I lean over and whisper to one of my students “Go do the rainstick.” Or “Grab the shaker egg!”

I use my sound signals for two purposes. Some of them serve as call and response signal or attention-getters. And the others tell the students to move to a certain area in the classroom. You could set up your signals to be really anything! 

There are many, many different things you could use as sound signals in your classroom, but I have 5 that I use. I post these pictures up on my wall to remind students of what action goes with which sound. At the beginning of the school year I also explicitly teach the signals to the kids and routinely practice them. 

Below are the ones I use!

I’ve chosen these signals because they are the ones that I’ve been able to acquire and I like the sounds they make, but there are so many options out there!

Just about all of these can be easily bought online. My students love my sound signals and I’m sure your students will too!

Words Their Way - How I Make it Work!

Words Their Way can be a bit of a daunting undertaking! Six years of working with it in my classroom has led me to the structure and set up that I currently use. In my second grade class, the students make dramatic jumps in their spelling pattern knowledge and WTW really accelerates their learning.

Let's jump into creating word study groups!

Spelling inventories help you to determine which spelling patterns students have a strong knowledge of, which ones they are using but confusing, and which ones they don't know at all.

The Words Their Way books provide you with different inventories (primary, elementary, and upper level inventory)




Personally, I prefer to use the spelling inventory version by Second Story Window. Check it out here! This version uses the same words, but changes up the format so that you can use the same sheet for the whole year. It makes it very easy to see individual student growth through the year.

Once you have the student inventories, it's vital to put the students into groups based on the spelling patterns they are working on. I try to keep my groups between 2 and 5 students because I want to make sure that students are getting an opportunities to talk through the sorting with a peer, and I want to make sure that all students are participating in the sorting.

Having lots of groups can be confusing (for me and the kids)! I keep a record in my Words Their Way binder, but I also keep a board up in my classroom that I can refer to easily and so the kids can remember the name and number of their sort.

Once you have your groups, then it's time to get started sorting and thinking!

Here's the rundown of a normal week of Words Their Way in my room.

Monday

Each Monday my groups receive their new sorts. They have to cut out their words, sort them as a group, and then raise their hands to show me they are ready to check over their work. I make sure that they understand the sorts and we have a short conversations about what the words mean. (This is an often overlooked component of Words Their Way that we go back to on Tuesdays.) Once checked, the students then write the words in the Sort and Search sheets.

Take a peek below at one of my groups working together to sort their words!

When finished with sorting and writing, my students have to think about a tip or a trick that will help them remember how to sort the words in the future. I've found that this section really makes the students explain the pattern in their own words. After that, they can work on the word search. This word search serves the purpose of occupying the quicker groups, giving me time to work with the other groups that require more help or time to finish.

Tuesday

On Tuesdays we take about 10 minutes out of our Daily 5 and CAFE language arts schedule to reinforce the meanings of the words with a Matching Meaning sheet. This is meant to be a quick review consisting of a definition/picture match section, a cloze sentence section, and a find the word paragraph. It helps to give the words meaningful context!

Tuesday - Thursday

During our Daily 5 time on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, my Word Work station is made up of games that help students practice sorting their words for the week. I put out the correlating games on the work work table, and students can reference the Word Sort bulletin board to remember which sort is their own. I have Connect 4 or Domino games for each sort all the way from Letter Name Alphabetic and Within Word Pattern to Syllable and Affixes.

Wednesday

On Wednesdays we complete another quick spelling activity to continue working with the words. Our Spelling Foldables address a variety of spelling and vocabulary skills. We only do one per week and so switching the 5 different activities keeps the students from becoming bored. 

The Consonants and Vowels Foldable is particularly helpful for students working with different long vowels patterns!

Spelling Foldables

- Draw and Label

- Consonants and Vowels

- Word Hunt

- Sentence Writing

- Alphabetical Order

Thursday

On Thursday we head into the computer lab for about 20 minutes to practice our words with the SpellingCity website/app. My kids LOVE playing these games and the extra practice is GREAT for them! What's even better is that the site already has all the lists typed up for you! (Cause you do not want to be typing in 200 some lists of words...) I often assign my students SpellingCity for homework as well. A subscription to the site costs only 60 a bucks a year and is SO worth it!

Friday 

Finally, on Fridays my students all pull their words out of their baggies and do a final sort. They then check the sort, either by conferencing with me, or by looking back at their Sort and Search sheet and then glue them into their notebook. When all members of their group have finished the final sort, I call them to me to take their spelling quiz. 

As of right now, the spelling quiz is nothin' fancy. I just call out 10 words from the sort, making sure that I hit on all the spelling patterns. I've got a few plans to jazz up my quizzes, but you'll have to wait and see!

And that's basically how I set up Words Their Way in my classroom!