Launching Our Workshops!

Readers' Workshop started out so smoothly this year! Our first couple of weeks we worked HARD on the routines and atmosphere of readers' workshop. They are really in the swing of things now! Ask your child when their assigned "book shopping" day is! I told them that I would go around and take a picture of the readers who were demonstrating exactly what readers' workshop looks like and sounds like! 

Writers' Workshop has been running very smoothly as well! The kids are loving the freedom of writing with their preferred "writing tools". Right now we are focused on three types of writing. Writers can write:

1. Stories with illustrations

2. Lists (any kind of bulleted list)

3. Webs 

They are doing so well! 

One very special thing about writers' workshop in second grade is the start of keeping a Writers' Notebook. It's a very special place for students to keep their writing over a long period of time. I explain the writers that this is a private place to write...they get to choose what they share with the class and they will eventually choose what pieces come out of the notebook to be published and shared. We had a great day about a week ago creating the "heart maps" for our writers notebooks. 

We also talked about how sometimes writers get "stuck". All writers get "writers' block" at some point in their writing life. So we listened to the book Ralph Tells a Story on YouTube. I may remind myself a little too much like Ralph's teacher prancing around saying "Stories are EVERYWHERE!" but it's just SO TRUE!

The kids really loved this story and how realistic it is of our writers. And yes a lot of times my boy writers are very resistant at first but eventually figure out that they have hundreds of stories to tell! They just have to learn how to get them on paper!