Internet OBSESSED part 1

Ok, I KNOW that I definitely want my students using our class website (another blog of course! your can see it HERE if you'd like) to publish their work. Let's be honest, I LOVE the internet - and it helps that it will be really good practice for all this wonderful Common Core typing business, which I am seriously excited about! - but I kept running into privacy issues and I am not paying $30 for an edublog when I know I can figure it out for free.... again INTERNET ♥

I thought I might have them post to a google drive account, but then I'd have to get them to log in and then would they all need individual log ins? More steps. I gave in and am now IN LOVE with dropbox - the best thing about it is that it creates a folder on your computer that will automatically sync! I then went about creating a folder for each student (I numbered these, way quick-easy-reusable).

Next, I made a handy dandy HOW TO page to put up right near our computer stations, but of course we will also take notes and practice, practice, practice ------ SIDE NOTE, I have student computers this year!!!!! and there is a computer lab?!?! What!?!?! Why am I so excited about this, poor kiddos my last two years, we didn't have these types of luxuries ----- but I digress, you can download the How To Guide for free HERE

So, the plan is that I will log in to my dropbox account (this will already be logged in on the student computers in our class) and probably copy/paste their work as a blogger entry on our class site with their names and everything. My summer school kids were super excited about being published on the internet! Fingers crossed it all goes well ♥

The Writer's Workshop Process

So, with the help of some YouTube magic, here are the steps I came up with for Writer's Workshop (DII - Input model). I taught this lesson today and it went really well! yaaaay!

Step 1: Think of something you know

Step 2: Draw a quick picture

Step 3: Write 3 sentences about your picture

Step 4: Add details

• 5 colors
• 5 sentences
• 5 labels

We talked  about (and I modeled) the three ways to add details: 5 colors, sentences, labels. I also made a poster of the steps and put it up under our word wall as a reference.

Of course, I modeled each step at the carpet as an interactive writing lesson (guided practice) before the kiddos went to their seats (independent practice). The nice thing about the model was that it ended up working as a way to differentiate for my struggling writers.

Writing in first grade.... what I'm slowly learning

Stockton Unified, my current home, uses California Treasures ELA curriculum - at first, I was really thrown off my game since I am not as familiar with Treasures as say, Open Court (which I had a lot of exposure to while student teaching), but now I am LOVING it! Especially for Phonics, sound spellings, fluency, decodable readers... I have finally worked out a routine and I can really see improvement in my student's reading! yay! 

But I digress, this post is about WRITING.... which was really a struggle for me to teach effectively. So I came up with the first of many ideas. Treasures really focuses on the main idea/details graphic organizer (the formative assessments are all about it,) so I started here. Almost every day the kids take out a 'brainstorm bubble,' we think of a main idea together, repeat for details (I've found for management purposes that it helps to have ALL of them write as I write).

Once our brainstorm bubble is ready, we move on to our writing, again we do this together.

We write 1 sentence for each bubble, crossing out the bubbles as we go. Once they are done writing with me, I give them a stamp and they can work on creating 'tear art' for their writing (motivation! they love art)

Now, here's my problem - they are COPYING and not writing on their own :(

While it is great that we are thinking of details and sentences together, I really want more of my students to be able to write on their own by the end of the year.

So, here's the plan (at least for this last month of school! oh, there's never enough time!) .... I am going to stick with the brainstorm bubble (because they need to be familiar with it either way) BUT I am going to try to give them more opportunities to create their own writing using aspects of Interactive Writing (along with Direct Interactive Instruction) and LUCY CALKINS Writer's Workshop. I found a few blogs that mentioned Calkins and then I found THIS awesome video on YouTube to help me understand it a little better.