Writing is definitely something that I struggle with. It is such an important skill to learn, yet schools seem to be putting more emphasis on other content areas and curriculums. It often falls to the teachers to learn and implement a writing curriculum that reaches all students and covers all topics…which is quite a lot of work!
This year, I’m implementing the Daily 5 framework in my classroom, the topic of my last blog post. One of the five centers is Work on Writing. Now, launching this center has been difficult, to say the least, in our Kindergarten class. At this point in the year we are still learning our letter sounds and correct letter formation, so telling them they need to write is a little daunting. Also, my Writing Workshop is still in the beginning stages, so they don’t have a solid foundation in this area just yet. Daily 5 sets up rules and routines for each of the five centers; for Work on Writing the rules are to write the whole time, stay in the same spot, start writing right away, and write quietly.
When I first launched this center with my Kindergarteners, it was a little messy. We had learned the rules and routines, but we were struggling with just how to get started. Since Daily 5 covers Kindergarten-5th grade, it doesn’t specifically discuss ability levels when launching each center. Many of my students just sat there looking at their paper, overwhelmed by the thought of having to fill it with sentences.
I started thinking how I could better help my kids with Work on Writing. After looking through different blogs and pins on Pinterest, I found this resource:
Mrs. Larremore posted that she had the same problem and shared some ideas of how to tweak it to fit the needs of Kindergarteners. So this morning, I paused our Work on Writing and took a step back. We talked about how there are different ways to write a story and that it’s ok if words aren’t on our page just yet. The anchor chart Mrs. Larremore created was a great visual for the students, as they were able to see there are three ways to write: first you can draw a picture, second you can label a story, and third you can write a sentence.
I think the lesson went really well and my students began to feel more comfortable with the task of “writing” a story. This lesson blended with Daily 5 really well; in Daily 5 there are 3 ways to read a book and the writing anchor chart taught there are three ways to write a story. I gave them about ten minutes to keep working on their writing and could already see progress being made. We will continue developing our writing throughout the year during Writing Workshop, but for now I feel as though my students are a little more capable of writing for an extended period of time without teacher assistance.
I hope that my students will continue to feel more and more confident with their writing! Although I just want to hit the ground running with my instruction, sometimes I think it’s important to take a step back and learn from your struggles.
Learning, Literacy, and Little Ones 
I think starting with drawing a picture is a great way to begin “writing” with your kindergartners. To change it up some, you could also give them magazine pictures to spark ideas. They could pick a picture to glue on their paper, and then label, write a sentence, or create a story from (for your advanced kinders). Do they do this activity in journals? It can be a great assessment tool to see their growth.
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