The Write Stuff!

Hello Friends!
I don't now about you, but I am ALWAYS on the hunt for great writing tools; and by tools, I mean writing techniques! I love to watch the progress that I see in my students when they have finally figured out what happens when you put letters, words, and punctuation marks together! I am always on the lookout for fun and new ways to teach writing. 

Before my kinders can begin the HUGE process of writing, they need foundational skills. These foundational skills include listening to sounds in words and writing the sounds they hear on paper, reading and writing CVC words, and understanding that words are separated by spaces in sentences.  And throughout this writing and reading journey, they are practicing those tricky sight words that are the glue that holds their sentences together! The journey is long, but by this time of year, I always start to see the fruit of their labors shine! 

Here is a close up example of the snowman writing activity that I posted last week. This little one still is writing capital letters in the wrong places and the letters are not sized properly, but I see a great beginning to sentence writing! 



I am so proud of the growth I have seen in this little girl. Writing was such a mystery to her in August. She came to kindergarten as a reader and my first impression of her was that here was a little one that would have no trouble at all with our kindergarten curriculum. Well, come to find out, that although she could read MANY words, she was a sight reader and therefore if the word was not in the word bank in her head, she had no idea as to how unlock the sounds in the word and read it. Her Mom told me that when they read with her at home, they would tell her the word as she read. They didn't work on blending sounds together to read the words because she picked up on reading so quickly. When she came to kindergarten and was told to write the sounds that she heard in the words, she really did not know what to do. So, despite the fact that here was a little girl who was reading at a DRA level J, she still needed basic word structure skill practice. Nonsense word reading was difficult for her because she did not have those silly words in her bank! She is a smart little girl, though, and as you can tell from her writing above, she has picked up the writing process and is doing really, really well! The biggest problem she has now is that because she KNOWS what a word is supposed to look like, she has a lot of trouble writing it down if it isn't spelled correctly. So it takes her a VERY long time to complete a writing activity

 Here are a few more writing samples from another student. This little girl writes TOTALLY by sound and I love it!


None of this writing can occur without the foundational skills that I mentioned above. Writing and reading go hand in hand; you cannot have one without the other.  Which is why I am excited to be a part of a new Educents bundle. 17 sellers have joined forces to offer a bundle package titled "THE WRITE STUFF." Included in this bundle are some amazing resources to teach both foundational and writing process skills. There are 27 resources included - wow! I am so blessed to be a part of this bundle! My part of the bundle is FOUR FANTASTIC JUNGLE  LITERACY CENTERS. Here is picture of a few of my students working on the ABC order center.

 In my packet, students do a jungle animal CVC word search, put animal pictures in ABC order, search for tiny sight words with a magnifying glass, and sort pictures into 1, 2, and 3 syllables. All these activities work on skills that kids need in order to build their sentence writing.



Click on the image below to take you to this wonderful writing resource!

http://www.educents.com/featured-deals/ela-write-stuff.html#kinderkay


For a limited time it is $29.99 from Educents which is over 71% off!  (They even have $10 off for first time customers… so it can be even cheaper if you have never bought anything from Educents!)

So that's it for now,  Friends!

Until next time!

Blessings,