Draft Book Publishing

My kids write in their draft books almost every day during our Writer’s Workshop block. Every Tuesday, I have publishing moms that come in and take the kids one-by-one to help them publish one of their writing pieces into a little book they can keep in their book baskets to read at different times. Hopefully by the end of the year the kids will have quite a collection of published books to take home and read to their families. The kids look forward to Tuesday because they absolutely LOVE having their hard work published!

The publishing basket contains pencils, markers, a stapler, plain white paper {cut}, construction paper {prefolded}, and a class list. My publishing moms are responsible for keeping the publishing basket stocked full of materials. After publishing a kiddo’s writing, the publishing moms write the date of publication next to the kiddos name on the class list so that everyone has a turn to publish before starting over. This really encourages the kids to write great stories…and they do!! Click on the link to download my publishing instruction letter for my volunteers!!

click to download

PUBLISHING LETTER

Reader’s Response – The Napping House

We’ve been talking about families this week one of our favorite books to read is The Napping House, by Audrey Wood. After reading the story, we talked about different things that we like to sleep with. CLEARLY, we’re not sleeping with a snoozing granny and a wakeful flea…well, I hope we’re not…so we talked about different things that we take to bed, or things we took to bed with us when we were "little”. I told them how my son sleeps with 5 Mickey Mouse dolls and they thought that was the funniest thing! HA! Here’s a little peek at their entry.

One of the teacher’s on our team had this cute little bed template. We cut those out and had the kids draw themselves in bed with whatever it is they sleep with…or used to sleep with…and then they wrote about it :)

Goodbye Poems

My kids have fallen in love with our goodbye poems. The kids have actually taken charge now and request to have a “leader” recite them every day as they all repeat! Depending on the day, I’ll ask the kids to give me a set of rhyming words before they can leave to go home. I still have some sweet friends who are having trouble understanding the concept, so it’s great reinforcement for those babies and fun for the whole group!

I wanted to hang these in a pocket chart, but the space around my door is limited, so I stapled these to the wall. They’re the perfect size. I created them to fit in a scheduling pocket chart, but the chart was still too big for the wall. Click the link below to download your set of Goodbye Poem Cards :)

GOODBYE RHYMING CARDS

Have You Filled A Bucket?

I started bucket filling in my class last year and my kids loved it! It was such a success that I decided to keep at it this year and it goes PERFECTLY with the schoolwide kindness initiative that’s being put into effect this year…Rachel’s Challenge. The first thing we do is read the book Have You Filled A Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud.

If you haven’t read this book, it’s a story that encourages positive behavior and it illustrates how rewarding it is to show kindness, appreciation, and love toward others. The story talks about how we each carry around an invisible bucket and when we use kind words and actions, we become bucket fillers {filling other people’s buckets}. But when we say and do things that aren’t kind and compassionate, we’re bucket dippers…emptying all the good feelings out of everyone else’s buckets. The book is well written in terms that kids can really relate to and they really got into this idea of bucket filling & dipping!

I introduced my class to our bucket filler board and had each of them decorate a bucket cut-out that would become their very own bucket that others can fill. I decorated a bucket, too! I found the downloadable templates on Mrs. Walker’s Website {scroll down to the bottom}.

I also printed out her “Filling a Bucket” forms, cut them out, and put them in a bucket next to the Bucket Filling Board. The kids can fill a bucket ANY time they want to!! We talked about filling everyone’s bucket, not just our friend’s. Every Friday, we check our buckets to find the kind words others have left for us. Here are a few of my kids…

“You are a nice friend to me.”

And here’s one for me! I find it HIGHLY amusing that this sweet little love called me “Cara” instead of “Mrs. Carroll”. I know I’ve told them my first name a million times, it’s just funny to see that one of them actually uses it in her writing! HA!

One of my moms caught up with me after her little girl brought home her first round of bucket fillers. She had tears in her eyes and said that her daughter was so excited that so many friends “filled her bucket”. She said, “Wow, Mom. My friends really do care about me.” Gush. I had tears, too! I love these bucket fillers and think it’s great that the kids have something tangible to keep and encourage them to fill other’s buckets, too!

Estimation Station

My kids visit the estimation station once a week. For the first 6-8 weeks, I fill the jar with various objects. Once we start our “Celebrity of the Week” {star student}, I let the kids bring in their own items to add to the estimation jar. I’ll send the estimation jar home with my Celebrity of the Week with instructions to fill the estimation jar with their choice of items WITHOUT counting what they put inside. The jar stays in the estimation station for the week and each day a different set of kids visits it to make their guesses. When they visit the estimation station, they write their name on a post it note along with the number of their estimation and stick it on the estimation station poster. On Friday morning, we take all of the post its and sort them into groups {based on the number of their estimation}. We count the objects in the estimation jar together and then we use the post its to graph the results in various ways…who estimated greater than/less than/same as the actual number; how many boys vs. girls estimated greater/less/same as the actual number; etc. The post its are perfect because they can be easily moved around for quick graphing and the kids LOVE it! Here’s a little peek at our estimation station…

Reader’s Response Journal ~ All About Me

Today we read the story, I Like ME!, by Nancy Carlson. I’ve had this little “all about me” template for years and knew it would be perfect for today’s reader’s response journal entry.

Here’s a little peek…

Reader’s Response Journals ~ Chrysanthemum

Today we read Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes. For our Reader’s Response, we did a little compare/contrast activity using our names and Chrysanthemum’s name.

Here’s a little peek…

The kids compared their names to Chrysanthemum’s name, writing both along with the number of letters in each name.