I wanted to share some fabulous FREEBIES from TPT that I found and have loved using with my class during Writer's Workshop.
My children needed some more practice with conventions (well- of course, because they are five...), and so we are working on more small moments stories. The children really enjoy and seem to understand writing small moment stories.
I read Every Friday , which is my new favorite small moment mentor text. Kathy Griffin introduced me to it earlier this year, and I just love it.
It is a sweet, simply written story. The children really see that one memory can turn into a story. Here are some pages from the book.
All week long, a boy and his father look forward to their Friday ritual—breakfast at their favorite diner. The leisurely walk through the neighborhood is just as good as the pancakes at the end.
This makes the book even more special:
Author Dan Yaccarino Talks About His Inspiration for Every Friday I guess the Friday breakfasts came about because like most dads, I sometimes didn't feel like I saw my son enough. Some weeks, our Friday breakfasts were the only time he and I had to talk or just share some time together.
I look back on when we started what became our little tradition. He was in preschool and had to start sharing his mom and dad with a new little sister. I wanted him to have some time when he didn't have to put up with a crying baby who yanked his ears, which he patiently tolerated. He and I soon looked forward to Fridays and the diner's owner, Nick, as well as a variety of regulars, warmly greeting us. To their continued astonishment, he consumed an entire adult-size order of pancakes and a side of bacon, of which I was very proud. I have fond memories of us watching people trudging through the snow and rain as he and I were cozily nestled in a booth, a little oasis from the outside world. As much as we loved Nick’s Diner, I think we both preferred the small journey we took each week to get there. It may have been a mere four blocks, but it was full of adventure: greeting familiar faces, window shopping and monitoring the progress of a building on the corner going up story by story. Nick's Diner has since closed, so our breakfasts have been relocated to another and like that building, my son is now tall and strong. I look back on his wonder of the world and fascination of even the smallest things. Even though it was only a few years ago, life seemed a bit less complicated. My hope for Every Friday is for dads, and moms, to set aside some time to be with their children. It doesn't have to be breakfast on Friday, but it should be some time that they can count on to be with just you. And perhaps many years from now, they will carry on the tradition with their own children.
Not only is this a great mentor text for getting the children to start thinking about special memories, but it's good for the teacher, too! One of my very special memories when I was young was getting to visit and stay over night with my grandparents and great-grandmother. I wrote a story to share with the children about some of the special things I did with them on our visits. I remember how we played Bingo for special prizes that my grandmother had saved for my sister and me, how my grandmother painted my fingernails and I always chose light pink like her nails, and how she would make waffles for us for dinner sometimes with a waffle maker right on the table! We came up with a title for my story together.
I also had them help me write a good ending for my book, so they reviewed good beginnings, middles, and endings. Sometimes coming up with endings is tricky.
For some reason, coming up with titles is also tricky for many of my kids. They want to write a whole sentence. I try to tell them that a title is just like a name for their book. "Sadie" isn't called "The girl with short, brown hair who likes to read." Her "title" is "Sadie." I am going to do another mini lesson about coming up with titles- just reading short stories and asking for some ideas for title- just so they practice creating titles.
I have noticed an improvement in the children's independent writing during Writer's Workshop because we have been doing more guided writing activities. However, there are some days when I am not looking at a particular child's writing (because I am conferencing with other children) and I think the ones I am not working with just assume I will never be seeing their books! Yikes!
We have been practicing together writing sentences in whole group guided writing lessons. We review beginning with a capital letter and not putting random capital letters in the rest of the sentence, leaving spaces between words, writing neatly, rereading to be sure no words are left out, and ending with a punctuation mark.
We have been practicing together writing sentences in whole group guided writing lessons. We review beginning with a capital letter and not putting random capital letters in the rest of the sentence, leaving spaces between words, writing neatly, rereading to be sure no words are left out, and ending with a punctuation mark.
I found some wonderful (and FREE!) resources on TPT that I wanted to share with you.
I LOVE Samantha Richardson's 4-Star Kindergarten Rubric. I printed out and laminated one of these for each of my students to use. It is a wonderful visual for the children. They "get" it. This was a great mini lesson and is a great review before I send them off to start writing, too.
This fabulous packet from Amy Morgan is perfect to show the children how adding details to writing adds so much to a story. I got more excited as I saw and read more sentences on each page, and so did the children. We had so much fun with this. We counted the sentences. We found the periods, and noticed that sentences don't just end at the end of a line but at the end of a complete thought. We talked about how much more interesting the illustrations were with details and color, too.
These are some writing packets with some great printable writing papers for the children to use. They have reminder rubrics right on the papers for the children.
Mrs. Lindsey has a great Writing Rubric K-2 Packet at her TPT store. 
Karen Langdon shared a great Writing for Readers Packet of writing papers. Her reminder rubric has real photographs.
I have my Primary Writing Prezi up every day during Writer's Workshop so I can zoom in on reminders about topics, editing, or conventions, or just so we can sing a song about being brave about writing!
Thank you for stopping by!
