Organization

Batch Your Anchor Charts and Save Time!

August 26, 2019

Have you ever thought about batching the prep work for your reading and writing anchor charts?

You could schedule out one hour of time on the weekend and have all 10 reading and writing anchor charts ready to go for the week!

I've found this to be so helpful and things often get busy during the week. Knowing that your charts are prepped and ready to go can be a huge stress relief!!

Include on Each Reading Chart:

The mini-lesson statement
Space for 3 examples
The first example completed. Simply cover the example up and reveal it when you're ready to model the skill during the lesson.
What's in green was what I batched in advance.
The red text is what students shared during the lesson.

Include on Each Writing Chart:

The mini-lesson statement
Your writing sample to model for the class. You can have this written in advance, then read through with the class.
Any ideas for students to try out as writers.

I'd love to share with you a free week of a Personal Narrative Unit of Study!!

Click any of the links to grab a free week now!

Included in each of the grade levels free weeks:

TEKS and CCSS State Standards
5 complete reading lessons with teacher language and sample anchor charts.
5 complete writing lessons with teachers language and sample anchor charts.
2 original 2-page mentor texts with custom illustrations.
Student note-taking pages for every lesson.
Note-taking pages for the teacher.
Reading and writing conference forms.
Revising checklists.
Editing Checklists.
Writing rubrics tailored to the lessons.
Reading log sheets

jen@jenbengel.com

How to Set Up a Writer’s Notebook

August 22, 2019

Welcome to this super helpful blog post in setting up writer's notebooks.

The biggest piece of advice I could give any teacher of writing is to keep your own notebook as well.

You want to model what lifelong writing looks like. You want to take your students on a writing journey as you write alongside them. They need to see you as a writer. They want to help you as a writer.

You will exponentially increase that writing success by modeling writing and keeping your own writer's notebook.

Don't worry, you can cheat and use the same one year after year The kids will never know.

I recommend adding to your notebook each year. This is also amazing because as the years go on you can show students that you have been writing for some time, and it's not just during the writing workshop either!

With that said, let's dive into the parts of a writer's notebook.

Students will record their finished writing projects throughout the year.

Have students copy the mini-lesson statement each day and one example. This will make the learning last all year and not just 15 minutes for one day!

This is the largest section of the notebook, where students will plant ideas that could turn into writing projects. Have them date each entry and create a new page for each seed so they have space to come back and write more in the future.

Students can learn a lot about writing by learning from other writers in the room, published writing, and you! Keep a record of all the new learning and reflect on it often.

Here are your tabs!

These are a couple of ideas for getting started with your writer's notebooks.

Try a free week of lessons!

CLICK HERE NOW

Click the image to try a free week of reading and writing workshop lessons!

Organize Your Reading Instruction in 6 Simple Steps

November 12, 2018

This blog post is for you if…

You teach reading in grades 2-6.
You need to cover all the reading comprehension skills in a year.
You love to be organized and prepared every day.
You're interested in learning a super simple, yet comprehensive way to teach reading all year.