Writing

Hello Friends!

State testing is over.

The standards have been met.

Now it's time for some FUN!!  

Check out this FREE resource I created for kids to interview each other about their summer plans!

I hope you can use this in your class and yours kids will have fun learning about all the fun they will be having this summer!

Looking for even more fun end of the year resources?  Click on the image below!

I have been working on getting ready for the summer tutoring season and thought I would share some things I am working on with you all.

One of the first things I do when I get a new tutoring student is have a conversation with the parents.

It's so crucial to gain as much information about the child before tutoring begins so that I can immediately start meeting the child's learning needs.

Here is a form I use to help guide me through conversations with new parents I meet.

Once a parent decides to go ahead and begin tutoring services with me, I have them complete the following contract.

This just reminds us both of the expectations we have for tutoring.

I use the following forms to survey students' reading and writing interest levels the first time we meet.

It really gives me great insight into how they feel about themselves as readers and writers.

For the younger kids, I just read the questions and ask their opinions.

This last form I use to send home with the students after each visit.

It is just a quick way for parents to see what we learned in our tutoring sessions.

Parents love to stay informed of any and all progress we make!

I hope these forms can help you as a tutor!

If you are looking for some curriculum for your tutoring sessions, CLICK on the images below to see the Reading Intervention Program!

Best of luck and happy teaching to you all!!

I am so excited about joining my incredible blogging buddies for another Bright Ideas Link Up and sharing how I set up a spelling notebook!!

After you read this post, be sure to hop over to some of the other amazing ideas!

I have my students set up Spelling Notebooks for the year for a few big reasons:

1.  It cuts down on loose papers.
2.  It's harder for students to lose a notebook than a piece of paper
3.  All their learning can be kept in one spot
4. We can look back at all we have learned in spelling throughout the year

What you need:

1. A spiral notebook for every student
2. Extra Strong Post-It Tabs

Create 5 Sections in the Spelling Notebooks

Section One: Mini Lessons

Section Two: Words to learn

Section Three: Practice Tests

Section Four: Spelling Tests

Section Five: Interactive Edits

That's It!

Hello again friends! 

It's Day 4 of the 12 Days of Christmas!

On the 4th day of Christmas Jen Bengel gave to me…

4 Workshop Lessons!

Hello Friends!

It's so hard to believe that we are in the last few weeks of 2014!  Seriously, where did the year go!?

Personally, my family had a BIG year!  We spent 75 days living in Uganda, Africa while we were adopting our son.  Now, we are finally home and celebrating the New Year as a family of 6!

Our new son is the most amazing, compassionate, sweet little 6 year old I have ever met!!

I can't share pictures of him just yet until the adoption papers are final.  But, when the time comes, you will get to see all 3 of his dimples and 2 missing teeth when he smiles big!

I put together a New Year's No Prep bundle of resources to help you and your students start the new year off right!

I hope you enjoy and have a great New Year!!

Hello Friends,

I wanted to let you know that I am having a Halloween Sale at my TpT store from October 30-November 1.  

Don't miss out on saving 20% on all my resources!!

Click on the image below to see over 300 reading, writing, and language resources for grades 2-8!!

I wish you all a very Happy and safe Halloween!!

I wanted to share with you a lesson our home school classroom did about teaching good speaking and listening skills.

Speaking and Listening skills are so HUGE because these skills are used not only in every subject in school, but throughout our daily interactions with others.

To see how we learned speaking and listening skills with a book talk example, watch this short video!

Here is the blank mini-lesson anchor chart:

I hope you all have a wonderful time enjoying your new listening and speaking skills!!

If you need reading and writing units of study for your classroom, you can click here.

Best wishes,
Jen Bengel

I am excited to share my latest thinking about interactive edits.  In the past, I have used D.O.L. (Daily Oral Language) worksheets in my classroom in the hopes that my students would correct all the mistakes in poorly written sentences.  I hoped, that by knowing how to correct numerous errors in poorly written sentences, they would be able to write correctly themselves.

My thinking completely shifted when I learned about Jeff Anderson and his idea of showing students well-written sentences, rather than putting poorly written sentences in front of them.  If you ever have the opportunity to hear Mr. Anderson speak, TAKE IT!  He is phenomenal…and highly entertaining I might add.

Check out this amazing 3-minute video of Jeff Anderson as he explains how to invite students to notice great writing.

    I have been inspired by Mr. Anderson to create resources that will help teachers implement interactive edits in their classrooms.

Here is a peak inside one of my monthly resources:

If you are interested in interactive edits with monthly themes throughout the year you can click on the image below.

I wanted to talk today about something that we should be teaching our students throughout the year…POETRY!

I absolutely LOVE teaching and writing poetry.

It is magical for me when every student realizes that they are all poets that have something important to contribute to this word.

I am going to share the way I get all my fifth graders to start writing and enjoying poetry.

Like every class, there are those students who start writing a million ideas in a million different directions.

Then there are those who have no ideas and spend 30 minutes finding anything and everything to distract themselves from attempting to write poetry because it's just not easy.

There is a way to bring both these extreme types of learners together and have everyone else in between successful as well.  The way I introduce writing poetry is to NOTICE really great poetry as readers.  We begin by exploring lots and lots of different poetry anthologies that interest students.

 Here are the steps I take:

1. I read several different poems I enjoy to the class, sharing my thinking about each poem.  I often talk about my emotions, connections, and experiences with the text.  I also discuss the author's use of language and the way in which he/she put the words on the page.  This modeling is a critical first stage in showing students examples of what readers should be thinking about when analyzing poetry.

 Here are some of my favorite collections of poems!

   

2. I lay out bins of poetry books and tell students that today they are going to spend some time enjoying poetry as a reader.  I ask them to choose a book to read and then pick one poem that really stood out to them while reading and copy it into their poetry anthologies (blank bound cardstock paper).  They MUST copy it EXACTLY as it appears in the book.  This helps students think about line breaks and spacing in poetry.  They even copy any illustrations!!

3. At the end of class I ask students to share the poem they copied with a partner. Then I have them talk about why they chose that poem.

That's it!  We repeat these steps over the course of several days until I feel students have been exposed to enough poetry that they are comfortable enough to try writing their own.  That is when we move into writing a poem about a poem.  We look back at all the poems we have copied and try to write our own that is similar to one of our favorite poems.

I have found this way to introduce poetry really fun and successful for every student.  Plus, it gives me great insight into what types of poetry my students enjoy reading.  We keep an anchor chart of all the things we notice about poetry and add to it each day.  This chart is extremely useful when students transition into writing their own poetry.

If you would like to learn more about the process of reading, thinking about, and finally writing poetry, you can visit my TpT store, where I have a month-long Poetry and Figurative Language Unit of Study for the reading and writing workshops.  The units have identical lessons, but are broken into individual grade levels so that all 40 lessons can be attached to the grade-specific Common Core State Standards.  Click on the pictures below and you can download the FREE preview to see the first four days worth of lessons!

Click on the link below to see the units available in my store:

Jen

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Today I want to share with you 7 prewriting strategies we use to ensure everyone is a successful writer!!

Strategy 1: Making a List
***Students can make a list of lots of different things!  Some of our favorites are:

a. What I Would Do With a Million Dollars
b. My Favorite… (foods, tv shows, movies, friends, etc)
c. Things I Want to Do Before I'm an Adult
d. My Dream Vacations
e. If I Had Unlimited Wishes I Would Wish For…

Strategy 2: Make a Web

Strategy 3: Sketching
***Sketching can be a great strategy for your artistic or reluctant writers to get ideas and details about a writing topic!  Remind students that a sketch is a quick drawing that is meant to develop ideas and details for a potential writing piece.  Kids LOVE sketching!!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Jen-Bengel/Category/Units-of-Study

Strategy 4: Make a List From a Topic on Your First List

***After students have a list, ask them to circle 3-4 items on the list that really stand out to them.  Tell them to think about the things they could write more details about.  After they have their few circled, have them write each topic on a clean page of paper.  Then they can make another list with even more details from each topic.  this is a great way to narrow down writing ideas!

Strategy 5: Branches

Strategy 6: Cartoon Strip
***My kids LOVE to write with cartoon strips.  It's a great combination of sketching and writing.  When I told my son he could write cartoon strips he went from being a reluctant writer to begging for more than 20 minutes of time to write!  They are a great way to encourage reluctant writers!!

Strategy 7: Timeline
***This is a great prewriting strategy for informational or nonfiction text writing.  It can work great for personal narrative, biographies, or memoirs as well!

The Mini Lesson

Step One: Have students copy the mini lesson into their writing notebooks

Step Two: As a class, brainstorm a list of ways writers can gather seeds during prewriting (your class may have other ideas than the 7 we thought of)

Step Three: Model a few of the strategies with your own prewriting notebook

Step Four: Invite students to share which strategy they will try during writing today.  Make sure every student quickly shares his/her plans for independent writing time.  This will ensure that they are all ready to write and you can hold them accountable at the end of the workshop.

Step Five: Give students time to write.  Walk around and conference individually with students who may need additional support.

Step Six: Gather back together as a class.  Have students share what they were working on with partners (ensuring that every student is involved and held accountable).  Have a few share with the class.

The lesson and prewriting strategies can be used all year long to produce great writing!!

I hope you all have a wonderful time writing with your students!!

If you need reading and writing units of study for your classroom, you can click here.

Best wishes,
Jen Bengel