Monday, July 15, 2013

Schedule Spotlight Series #6 - Writing


Happy Monday!!! I am NOT watching the Bach right now...I decided to catch up on TiVo tomorrow morning! I didn't want to succumb Mr. B to it yet another week! :)

This is the sixth {say what?!?!?} post in the 10 week Schedule Spotlight series!
For those of you just joining in the fun, we are going through our day, minute by minute and hour by hour! Almost as a good as observing…but saving money on gas and sub pay! :)




7:45 - 8:15 ~ Morning Work {Post #1 - June 10}
8:15 - 8:30 ~ Calendar {Post #2 - June 17}
8:30 - 9:00 ~ Math {Post #3 - June 24}
9:00 - 9:45 ~ SPECIALS
9:45 - 10:30 ~ Phonics {Post #4 - July 1}
10:35 - 10:55 - RECESS
11:00 - 11:30 - LUNCH
11:30 - 12:40 ~ The Daily Five Sessions 1 and 2 {Post #5 - July 8}
12:40 - 1:10 ~ PE
1:15 - Restroom Break
1:15 - 1:45 ~ The Daily Five Session 3

I mentioned in the last Daily Five post that my first Daily Five mini lesson is writing! I do a mini lesson first thing when The Daily Five starts, so that all kiddos will have had the mini lesson before they Work on Writing.

11:40 - 11:55 ~ Writing Mini Lesson
I have done this differently every year. For the past two years, I have incorporated Writing Workshop into The Daily Five. Because we have both specials and PE most days of the week, there just wasn't enough time to do 2 or 3 sessions of Daily Five in addition to Writing Workshop. 

I still do the essential elements of Writing Workshop, including mini lessons, conferencing, and student author sharing...it is just broken up a little up during The Daily Five. 

I love this set up for one main reason: Not all 18 of my kids are sitting at tables at the same time trying to concentrate and write! During the Daily Five, there are 3 sessions and only 5-6 kiddos are writing at one time. This means that only 2 kiddos sit at each table and have plenty of room to spread out and get in the writing groove! :) This also allows me to conference with more writers more often! If we are doing a lot of publishing or editing on a certain writing project, I will have all 6 of the kiddos who chose Work on Writing for that session meet with me for a writing small group!

We use a variety of resources for our writing lessons, including Lucy Caulkins' Units of Study for Primary Writing, Talking, Drawing, Writing: Lessons for Our Youngest Writers by Martha Horn and Mary Ellen Giacobbe, and of course, fab bloggers like YOU! 



I can honestly say blogging has made teaching writing WAY more fun! :) 

This was our plan last year:
AUGUST - What Writer's Write
SEPTEMBER - Why Writer's Write
OCTOBER - Fix It Up! Editing
NOVEMBER - Descriptive writing
DECEMBER - Letter writing
JANUARY - Paragraphs
FEBRUARY - Nonfiction writing
MARCH - How To writing 
APRIL - All About books 
MAY - Booklets **Changing to Opinion writing in 2013 - 2014!*

I loved setting the tone for our writing time with the What Writers Write and Why Writers Write ideas from Cara Carroll! Check out her awesome post about this {here}.


Link up below to tell us all about your Writing time!

Join us next Monday, July 22 to hear about how small groups roll in my classroom!

Have a fab summer week! :)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Umm (cough), did you just say "all 18 of my kids"? Wow! That's awesome! We have 28 (sometimes more with overloads)! I am super jealous!

Anonymous said...

Ok, now that I have composed myself, what are you doing while the kids are doing Daily 5? Are you doing writing conferences or guided reading or both?

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