Little Minds at Work

All About Writing! {freebie packed}

Hey friends!  Well I have to say that writing the past couple weeks was so wonderful!  I will be completely honest and say that some weeks our writing time is good and some weeks it’s GREAT!  The past couple of weeks the kids were “on” and really had a passion for what they were writing about.  When they leave the carpet with a “plan” for their writings you know it’s going to be a great writing day!

First up is opinion writing!  I also love our big opinion writing talk!  I mean we have wrote our opinions before, but when it really clicks is when you know they got it!  I love introducing the kiddos to the big word for our opinion writing, because!  I always give a big hoopla over making sure we pronounce it correctly!  This might not be an issue in other parts of the country, but here in Missouri it’s usually pronounced as “becuz!”  So, after this talk they are correcting me the rest of the year if my pronunciation isn’t spot on!  We start with some simple opinion writings! We also talked a lot about what an opinion is and how it’s okay to have a different opinion then our friends!

Download the freebie opinion writing starters below!  I equipped the kiddos with the word because to ensure they were backing up their opinions!

We also used several of the writing templates in this freebie packet from Ashlyn Ellsworth!  She also has an opinion sort that we did at the carpet!  It was great for our “what’s an opinion talk?”

We also wrote opinions on if we liked the tooth fairy best or Santa Claus! Below students wrote their thoughts in the opinion graphic organizer!  {Download the freebie below}


 

Another fun favorite is our book of opinions!  This is also a freebie you can download below!

Another great activity for opinion writing goes along with the book The Best Part of Me!   Students listened to the kiddos in the book tell what they like best about their body and why.  Our kiddos then chose their favorite and wrote about it!  

 

Just this past week we started to take a new look at narrative writing!   With our narrative writings we focused first on the idea of having an opening sentence, supporting details, and a closing sentence!  I explained to the kiddos their opening sentence is like a cover of a book…it makes the reader interested, the supporting details were the inside pages of the book, and the closing sentence was them “closing their book.”  So, as I circulated the room I would say something like, “were you able to close your book?”  I got a lot of “wow, this teacher has a lost her mind because this is a piece of paper…NOT a book!”
I’ve mentioned it before, but my sister teaches next door to me!  So, after school I went into her room and saw she had a poster like the one below!  After making this poster the whole….opening, supporting details, and closing had an AH HA!  


After a couple of days with simple narrative writing stories in our journals we went on to these “A Day in the Life of..” story booklets!  The kids really LOVED this writing activity and I would suggest to anyone …give it a try! 🙂  I’ve included the template as a freebie down below! For this activity we also worked on the importance of transitional words! I went ahead and labeled each page with their transitional word for ease of writing!

 

  

And additional personal narrative story booklets!  This booklet & graphic organizer is a freebie listed below! 🙂

 

 


What’s up next for us?  Well *weather pending* we will be tackling narrative story booklets with how we’ve grown and changed!  Our close read for this upcoming week is for the book below, A Tiger Grows Up!  This is  nonfiction text that shows how a tiger cub grows and changes!  So, we will be comparing how we’ve grown and changed to that of the tiger cub.  We will then be writing our grown and changed story booklets!  I will post pictures of those once they are completed!  However, I’ve added the freebie below 🙂


Now for a few extras on our classroom writing!  This is our spelling board/digraph poster board!  The kiddos reference this area when needed!

Our sight word reference wall

Something else I started recently {why not at the beginning of the year???} is this fantastic 4 star writing rubric!  This rubric comes from Samantha Francis!  She offers it as a freebie and you can click below to grab it from her TpT site!  I have made this transparent for all of our writing…Daily 5, reading groups, Road to Reading, etc….any time we are writing/coloring we are discussing if it’s a 4 star paper!

 I also made these writer’s checklists for my kiddos!  I laminated them and they have them in their writing folders.  They have helped a lot.  When I am conferencing during writing we are referencing these checklists and the kiddos are self-checking!  This is also a freebie!  Click the image to download!

Well I hope you enjoyed these freebies! Leave me some love if you were able to use any of these and feel free to pass them along! 🙂  Have a great ending to the weekend!

Comments

  4. Thank you Tara! Our district is using the Lucy Calkins writing program. It is now CCSS aligned. I am not thrilled with her Opinion writing section. It's too "political" in my opinion! Your ideas are much more age appropriate. Ill try to combine the 2. Thank you for this great post!

    Reply

  8. Thank you for sharing the wonderful freebies! I love your products! Your students do an amazing job with writing. I'm the kindergarten Title I teacher in our district, and I work with those kiddos who would not be able to handle this. They struggle to write words (and their name) and still don't know what sentences are. Some can't put a complete thought together. How do you help your strugglers with their writing? Also, I would love to see your daily schedule; you cover so much! How do you get it all done?

    Reply

    • Hi there! I don't really have any super-amazing tips that I use for my struggling writers. It is really a guided writing. I help them find the words they are needing on the sight word wall and help them to stretch out the sounds. If they are unable to stretch the words themselves.

      Reply

  12. Thanks so much for these freebies. We've been struggling in writing lately…this will give us the push we need!

    Reply

  17. Oh my gosh! Thank you for all of these FABULOUS resources! Nothing better than a whole bunch of fundamentally useful freebies!! My school system asks us to include a narrative, opinion, and expository writing sample in kids' portfolios, so this is REALLY helpful! Thanks so much!

    Reply

  19. I am in love with these resources! They are amazing! Thank you for being so generous and making them as freebies for us! I love the digraph posters, are they available as a template?

    Reply

  31. What a fabulous post! Thank you so much for sharing your hard work. We are getting ready to begin opinion writing, so those pages will be helpful. I love how you broke down a space for each reason to support their opinion. Awesome job!

    Reply

  32. I love your posts and products. I am wondering about your scope and sequence for writing for the year. Do you have a copy you could email? I would love to know how and when you are introducing these writing foundational skills. Thanks much!!

    Reply

  34. Thank you for all the Freebies. The booklets are great. I can't wait to use the rubric and the checklist. I think it will help my daughter's writing out a lot.

    Reply

  36. Girl, this was amazing! Now I have writing plans for like the next three weeks after spring break! I'm not sure there's even ONE thing in this post that I don't want to copy like NOW! Thanks for sharing! I am really excited to go back and really "dig in" with my Writers' Workshop!!!!

    Reply

  40. Having grown up in Denver and now teaching in KCMO, I have to ask….how do you teach your kids to pronounce "because?" Do you emphasize the "cause" like "coz?" I grew up saying "becuz" and hear that all the time, so I'm curious. 🙂 The only thing that drives me crazy with my kinders is the way they say "crayon" as "crown," but so many adults here do that too so I've nearly given up on "fixing" it! 🙂

    Reply

    • Anna- Such a good question! We have BIG discussion on not saying bcuz…we say it "proper" as I tell them 😉 We pronounce it bec/o/z! They will even correct me if my Missouri slang slips! 🙂

      Tara

      Reply

  49. Hello!

    I am not able to get a copy of the ” A Day in the Life Of” writing page. I would love to use it with my kindergarten friends. Can I please have the link to that freebie?

    Reply

  50. These resources are amazing! When I click on the link to the How I’ve Grown it redirects somewhere else. Can you please send? THANK YOU!

    Reply

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