[Writing Adventures]

We're currently on day 3 of our narrative writing adventure in our classroom.

We're writing about the first day of school.

Taking it day by day makes it a LOT easier to get a finished product, but it sure is a long, drawn-out, crazy process!

Here's the link to my Narrative Writing pack on Teacher's Notebook.

It's a good, solid, research based writing pack.

My favorite part is that it helps my littles get some really good word choice in their stories - especially after we do a few narrative writing adventures as a whole class before I turn them loose (and I use that term very very lightly, lol) to write on their own.

Last night I was doing a little bit of searching to find some other stuff to add to my Writing Binder and came upon this: The How of Writing: First-Graders Learn Craft from the National Writing Project.

I.Can't.Wait to do this with my littles!

What a fun little group I have this year.  They have awesome personalities and so much energy!  They're getting into a good routine and learning to follow our class rules.

One of my cute moms knew yesterday would be a tough day for me and brought me the cutest survival kit.  Why, yes, that is an ice cold diet coke tied up all fancy like with a Hershey bar.  :)

We had our Room Parent Tea yesterday.

I have over half of my moms signed up to help with parties and such.  :)

Yay for awesome helpers!

We get to start Learning Stations on Monday - I finally got that schedule put together.

Super excited about that!

Kenton started radiation therapy yesterday.  Twice a day for 4 days.

Round 1 went well.

Round 2?  Not so much.  Made him sick.

He threw up a couple of times and has a really sore jaw.

We girls are missing our boys and counting the sleeps till we see them again.

Sure do LOVE LOVE LOVE these two little monsters of mine!

Thank you for keeping our family in your prayers and for following my little bloggity blog.

Happy Wednesday!

Have a great day!

[Narrative Writing] NOW on Teacher's Notebook

Our PD last Monday was in.cred.i.ble.

Absolutely amazing!

I LOVED all of the ideas that were shared and have been busily working to figure out how to bring those ideas into my classroom!

Writing with first graders is tough.

Let me rephrase - GOOD writing with first graders is tough!

As my principal reminded us on Friday during faculty meeting, "Practice doesn't make perfect.  Practice makes permanent.  So be very careful what you're having your kids practice!!"  I'm so guilty of just saying, "Take out your journals and write."  That's not necessarily the bad part.  It's the fact that I never look at their journal writing.  We don't talk about it.  We don't edit it.  We don't do anything else.

You know as well as I do how frustrating the whole writing process (when done the right way!) can be with a whole class of littles.

I need to be better about the I DO, I DO, I DO, WE DO, WE DO, WE DO, YOU DO thing.

Mucho modeling.  Lots of shared writing experience.  All of that before I turn them loose to write.  Sigh.  It's not pretty.  It's not fun.  It is necessary.

In order to better facilitate just exactly the what and the how of this in my classroom, I spent the afternoon coming up with a plan.  A plan with LOTS of organization.  LOTS of steps.  This IS going to work.  Right?!

Anyone else in the same boat?  Or are you a rock star that can get awesome writing out of your kids every.single.time?  If so, can I come to your room and hang out for a while to soak in your awesomeness?  Pretty please?

If you are in the same boat.  Maybe give this a shot.  See if it works.  It's based on proven practices.  It meets the first grade core for writing narratives.  It should make the whole process easier (provided that mucho modeling and lots of shared writing happens FIRST!).

Image is linked to the whole stinkin' download.

The procedure page.

The planning/pre-writing page.

The developing the sentences pages.

The publishing page.

The title page.

The About the Author page.

It's a lot.

It took me for.e.ver.

Thanks to everyone who downloaded this freebie!  With so many downloads, I hope this is helpful to many teachers and students!  This free offer has expired.  If you would like to access this file, it's only $2 at Teacher's Notebook!

Have a great day!