Publishing Young Authors

Hey, friend!  It's Andrea from Always Kindergarten.  Writer's Workshop is one of my favorite times of the day in my Kindergarten classroom.  Watching my students' writing evolve over the school year is so amazing to witness.  I love how their personalities shine through their writing by the end of the year.  

One of my most favorite events of the school year is our Authors' Morning.  You can read more about this event over on my blog.  It is a celebration of our hard work and a way for us to show off our learning.  

Throughout the year, we learn how to write personal narratives, how to books, opinion pieces, and informational books.  At the end of the year, we review all we have learned and my students create fictional narratives.  This year, I decided to give my students their own writing journals.

At the end of our unit, I meet with each student and we choose their best story to publish.  I type up each child's story with a blank box at the top so they can draw final illustrations.

We also create a front cover, title page, dedication page, and a page all about the author.

Then I bind the books on this amazing machine!

No more laminating, no more annoying combs, this baby binds books in 90 seconds!  It's the Book Creator from Premier Binding.  You can find it here.  It has changed my life when making class books and publishing student work.  I absolutely love it!  If you give them a call, ask for Jay and tell him I sent ya!

The kiddos love reading their stories to each other!

Do you publish student writing?  I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

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Sounds of Spring

Hooray!  Spring is just around the corner!  I'm sure those of you who have had to brave the cold and snow are excited for warmer days.  Here in Northern California, we are finally getting some much needed rain.  I absolutely love spring time in the classroom.  My Kinders have routines and procedures down, they are so much more capable, and we really get to enjoy some exciting themes during this time of year.

Teaching the seasons is a big deal in Kindergarten.  This can be a challenging task where we live (especially trying to really explain winter!).  Luckily, there are some amazing resources out there to help us out.

One of my absolute favorite resources in the classroom is BrainpopJr.  We are lucky enough to have a school site subscription and I use it all the time!  This video helps to explain the season of spring in a very kid appropriate way.

There are some beautiful and super fun books for spring.  Here are some of my personal favs:

    

Last year, I picked up Everything Spring by Jill Esbaum from Scholastic.  It is a National Geographic Kids book and is an amazing combination of real photographs and poetic language.  

After reading the book, we brainstorm a list of spring sounds.  I love what the kids come up with each year.

After our brainstorm, each child writes and illustrates a page for our class book.

"Spring sounds like baby birds chirping for worms.  It is soothing."

Want to try this with your class?  You can grab the writing page and cover for a class book in my TpT shop for FREE!  Just click the image below.

What are some of your favorite activities for spring?

Happy Spring!

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Juicy Sentences

Is writing your favorite subject to teach?  Well, I've come up with a creative way to help your little ones enjoy writing descriptive sentences. I have used this juicy method for years and I love to hear when my parents ask me, "Hmm, what are juicy sentences?"  '

Juicy sentences are basically descriptive sentences, but in a child-friendly and fun manner.  :) At the beginning of the year, I tell my firsties that they have to write a sentence that consists of 7 or more words.  They love to write "I love my mom."  I tell them to tell me why they love their mom and what makes her special to you.  Now, that's when my juicy sentences strategy comes into play.

We slowly build our Juicy Sentences anchor chart to include things that we learn across the weeks. So far, we have come up with these suggestions.  As the year progresses, we will add more lemon drops to include other writing articles like nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, adverbs, and so forth.

Now that I'm a part of this great collaborative blog, this strategy means more to me now than ever! As I was creating the anchor chart with my fab daughter, I kept thinking of our Primary Punchbowl! I just had to tie the two together and I love to look at it every day to remind me of the special place these beautiful ladies have in my heart.

I have to give a huge shout-out to my daughter at Tides of Learning who is experiencing her first year of teaching! Of course, you know I'm a proud momma! I told her what I was going to do and she said "Mom, I will draw the chart for you. You just relax!"  How could I say no?!  So this chart reminds me of my fab friends and my forever baby! Oh man, now I need tissue.

Back on track...

I also tie in the strategy, CUPS: Capitals, Understanding, Punctuation, and Spacing and Spelling.  I learned about this great strategy from Kimberly Edgerton TpT Store and you can click here for her FREEBIE!

After a few weeks of drilling juicy sentences, then I tell the students to write a juicy sentence.  They exchange their journals and guess who is the teacher now?  Yup, they are! Can you hear the excitement?!!!  They use a "teacher's pen" and I guide them to check for CUPS.

What do you think? So how do you help your students develop a love for writing?  

What strategies do you incorporate?

Thanks for stopping by!
Whoop-Whoop from Elizabeth, First Grade Stripes 

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