Writing to exhale....

Well the first two weeks of school are now over and I have truly enjoyed my Labor Day Weekend. For some strange reason my mind keeps drifting to the never ending LIST. It's been a wild ride already.... I've been slowly organizing my brilliant bunch's supplies, notebooks, binders and etc.

Editing Cups
I finished the editing cups for their writing station. This is a major accomplishment for me because it means that this year I'm committed to teaching writing and it's not one of my favorites. I normally teach 3rd grade where the focus is passing our state reading test. Therefore, I've always kind of done just the minimum in writing. I'll have this group for 2nd and 3rd grade and it's up to me to give them a strong foundation in writing so I can slack a little in 3rd grade.

BEFORE PICTURE

AFTER PICTURE

Pencil Cup Labels

Writer's Notebook Tabs
We've already covered the basics of Write from the Beginning (WFTB) and done our first shared writing. Now we're moving on to using our Writer's Notebooks. We're dividing our writer's notebooks into 5 sections: Ideas & Inspiration (Brainstorming); Writer's Craft (Grammar, Mini-Lessons and Mechanically-Inclined); Quick writes & Discovery Drafts; References (High Freq Words, etc) ;and Word Collector (Interesting words and vocabulary). Our fifth grade newbie teacher, Ms. Salas gave me a great idea to use mailing labels as tabs in our composition books. She explained that you insert tables into each label and have them reversed so that you can read both sides when the label is folded. Cover the label with tape and Voila you have tabs!!!


Journal Tabs