Teaching with Mel D

Daily 5 Chapter 6 Book Study & a Lakeshore Discount!

I will be honest……I have always struggled getting my firsties to love writing. I am confident they leave my classroom with a love of reading but my goal last year was to do that with writing.We are giving them the foundation for reading and writing and it’s our job to prepare them for the dreaded “writing” portion of state tests. If you have been following my blog then you know I use warm fuzzies. Last year I actually started taking warm fuzzies if they forgot a capital or punctuation. They would get so frustrated but it did work. Daily 5 provided my class with the opportunity to write daily and they ended up being the BEST writers I’ve ever taught. You have to make it exciting for them & change things up. As soon as I sniffed out any boredom at all I would change things up. There are so many resources out there in blogland and on TPT that I took advantage of this year. I start out discussing the following chart. 
Of course you need to provide them with fun & engaging materials to use during Work on Writing. And since I am super psycho obsessed with school supplies I took advantage of the back to school sales. 
This is the supplies they have to write with….trust me it only got bigger…I ran out of room! Their absolute FAVORITE thing to use for Work on Writing or Word Work were these glittery oh so fabulous crayons from Lakeshore! 

This is where I would display their seasonal monthly writing. I bought the clipboards @ Walmart for $1 & modge-podged the tie dye paper on each of them. I absolutely love this & so does administration ;o) 

I would make my little nuggets monthly journals. They would decorate each journal with these covers. I found them for FREE here.

This was one of my students FAVORITE writing activities…..STICKER STORIES!

They would also get to use seasonal stamps to create their stories. 

I would also have them fill out this heart map each quarter. Here is an example of one.

They loved to use their heart map! If they got finished early with a writing activity then they had this as one of their many back-ups.

This binder is FULL of pictures and words! I purchased them from Kerri @ Teacher Bits and Bobs.

These folders I purchased at a garage sale…already done! Boo-yah! Score! Anyway there are words inside each folder. Caitlin over at Kindergarten Smiles created something just like this & it’s incredible! Check it out here!
She also has a great writing center packet that I used towards the end of the year. Check it out here.
Dee Dee Wills from Mrs. Wills Kindergarten creates monthly writing center activities that I discovered towards the end of the year. I will be purchasing the bundle she has available for every month! Add it to your TPT cart here!

In the baskets behind them I store the following mini writing sheets. I would lay the 4 baskets out & they would have to write all four & that kept them busy the WHOLE time. I am planning on making more when I have the time.

Click on any pic to grab your copies for FREE! The last one is one of many they would write to friends, teachers, or even mom and dad. I would put out the birthday paper for my students to write a special note to someone for their birthday. They even asked to use it to write about their birthday.
Lakeshore Learning my ALL TIME FAVORITE TEACHER STORE sent me this phenomenal Sentence Building Writing Center. I am obsessed friends…I want them ALL! 

Every product I own from Lakeshore is high quality. This product of course did not disappoint. It took me 10 minutes to put together & will be used for many years to come.

Children build sentences using noun, verb and adjective tiles, learn how to identify and avoid sentence fragments, punctuate sentences and more! This ready-to-use center is packed with 12 engaging activities that develop essential language skills…plus all the hands-on materials students need to complete each one—including 12 self-checking activity cards, plus parts of speech tiles, sentence cards, writing mats and more. Best of all, each activity comes with simple, step-by-step instructions that students can follow on their own—and build skills at just the right pace! Everything comes in a sturdy, freestanding nylon folder that sets up in seconds.
I love how this folds up so nicely for super easy storage. I plan on purchasing a TON of these centers to use in Word Work during Daily 5. The wide selection they have is unbelievable! My wheels are spinning already between writing grants & getting a Donor’s Choose project funded.
The BEST part about this is Lakeshore Learning has offered all my readers 25% off of one item. So take all that grant money, TPT $, tutoring $ & shop till you drop! I know I will! 
Enjoy 25% off from Lakeshore:   
 www.lakeshorelearning.com/savenow
I am breaking up this chapter and doing a separate post about Word Work in the next few days. I didn’t realize this was going to be so long & informative. I hope I gave you some tips & tricks you can try out this year! If you would like to join the linky party YOU MUST LINK DIRECTLY TO YOUR D5 POST OTHERWISE IT WILL BE TAKEN DOWN.
Check out our chapter 6 hostesses below: 
Fabulously First

Our chapter 7 hostesses are these fabulous bloggers!

Surfin' Through Second


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Comments

  1. Thank you for sharing your work on writing ideas! I have a separate time for Writer's Workshop that has more formal writing lessons so ideas like this are perfect for me. I can't wait to see what you do for word work!

  4. Thanks for sharing. I just tried to use the link and coupon code and it didn't work. When I put the coupon code in it said it was invalid. When I click on the link above it says the link is broken. Help!

  7. You sure know how to make writing fun!
    I love LAkeshore Learning. There is one near my house. When I finished student teaching, my cooperating teacher gave me a $30 gift certificate, and I can't wait to go use it!

  10. Woo hoo!! I love Lakeshore- I just purchased the tabletop writing center and I agree there products stand up to the day to day use.

  14. I love your clipboards with tie dye paper to display student work. How did you attach the clipboards to the wall?

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