Five for Friday~Work on Writing

Hi-ya, peeps! How are ya?


Another Friday has rolled around! I’m linking up with Kacey from Doodlebugs Teaching to reflect over our week. I know I mentioned trying to get back to add my lesson plans….hopefully this week will be the one! Wish me luck on managing my time. I’m working on it! =)

We’ve had a great week! It was our 4th week of school and with it came the introduction of work on writing. Before I left work last Friday, I made sure all of our supplies were set and ready to go. Perfect laid plans….and you know what happened on Monday? The kids came….and then it all changed! Ha! They came in, moved to the station to work on their stamina and boom! Just like that…..we made changes right away because they viewed using the materials differently than I did. But, guess what?!

Their way worked better for them, so we made the changes….adapted and they worked wonderfully throughout the week. I’m a little nervous about having all 4 of them at the same table, so we’ll see how that goes for now.



Included in their choice of materials is the reader’s notebook they keep in their book boxes. They can complete writings from morning work in it or start a new story. The little storage drawers contain writing paper. Choices 1 and 2 are activities students can use to practice specific skills if they have a little trouble coming up with a topic. The poster on the table is from a book of mini-posters to provide a little help with challenging vocabulary. Those will be changed out on a regular basis. The writing station is also located right under the word wall for students to use it as a reference.



The blue bin on the end was one of the first things to go…it holds our poetry journals. The kids didn’t have enough room to write comfortably, so its been relocated to the shelf where we house word work supplies.

Click the pic below to download the goodies we used if they’ll work for you too!



Students are being guided as we begin working on writing, but will soon have the independence to write about a topic of their choice during Daily 5. We’ve brainstormed ideas and created an anchor chart that I forgot to take a picture of! For now….and with all of our station activities, inside the “choice” drawers is an ‘I Can…’ statement that lists an expectation and paper to complete the activity. These little statements serve the purpose of providing students with purpose, guidance, and a little reading practice!

AND…in our classroom, its a standing rule that we don’t use the two words…I CAN’T. That’s a big no no. When my kiddos come to school each day, I want them to know from the time they come in and begin working that they CAN and WILL be successful at anything they put their minds to.



This week, we also began prepping what we’ll need for our word work station. Do you  know of a place that sells extra long pocket charts? I’m sure there probably is one, but today…we used industrial strength velcro to hang two layered together to create one! Easy…quick and FREE! You only notice if you look closely, but now we have a pocket chart that’s about my height {I’m not very tall.} that students can use to complete word sort activities each week. It’s also double sided…so we use the other side during math stations in the afternoons.



Nouns and verbs have been introduced! This was a quick sketch at the carpet today as we reviewed nouns.


My kids totally knocked my socks off when they started rattling off math words to add to our verb anchor chart! It proved that singing ‘I Can Spell my Math Words’ every day has been a real hit! So much so, that we shared the pen for them to help me list words. Some of the verbs on the chart also came from Dr. Jeans’ Verbs song.  Now that we’ve introduced both nouns and verbs, we can move on to using them in complete sentences! With each passing week…we add a little more, build on what we know and add a little more!

We worked really hard this week and smiled through most of it! My kiddos amaze me just a little more every single day. Next week, we’ll introduce the final piece to the puzzle for Daily 5…word work and full on choice!

Well, as we tweak things to get them just right…..a little change must come!



I’m going to add this little cutie as a reference, next week. I loved finding this clipart set from Nikki at Melonheadz Illustrating because I’ve found myself using these very words over and over and over again as we’ve begun to focus on writing. Here’s a second option.


Click either of the pictures to download and print them if you can use them in your writing station.

Have a great weekend! Laters, gators!