Thursday, April 28, 2011

Writing Paper


I've mentioned before that I use Lucy Calkin's Units of Study for Writing. Today I want to share the handwriting paper I use with my students to help them organize their Writing.

I want to start by saying this was not my idea, I just made it cuter. When we being the year my students start with a one page sheet. This has one box, for a picture and 2 to 3 lines below for a sentence or two about their picture.The Kindergarten and First grade look different so I will show you both. I will also show you my Second graders writing papers. (Some of you may not know I see 4 second graders for 30 minutes everyday to work on Writing.)

Kindergarten
 You'll notice that Kindergarten only has 1 line. This is because at the start of Kindergarten, as many of you already know, most children only manage to get one or two words on paper. As the year progresses more lines are added.

First Grade
Why lines for 1st Grade and not Kindergarten? In Kinder we concentrate on the context of the text and not the actual handwriting. Don't misunderstand, they do receive handwriting instruction daily, we just don't want them to get hung up on it during their story telling writing time. While in 1st grade they have already had a whole year of handwriting and we want the students to apply what they have learned. 

Second Grade
This is front & back and they can use as many as they need to complete the story. It usually ends up being 1. :(

Halfway through the year my 1st graders are writing in 5 page books. It is just 5 pages stapled together. This helps them to stretch out their stories. If you use Units of Study you know exactly what I am talking about. However, my students struggled with remembering what to put on each page.

One morning when a teacher friend showed me how she had added some picture visuals to her students writing papers to help them I love this idea. (Thank you Miss. H) I had just downloaded some new fonts from Kevin and Amanda.com and it just so happened that some were Doodles. I knew exactly how I would use them. So I went about adding them to my 1st graders writing sheets. Here is what they look like.
Let me move on now. By the middle of the school year my Kindergarten students move to what we call 3 page books. We've taught the trait of Organization and they know that their story must have a beginning, middle & end. We teach the Organization trait with the "O Train". This is a clip art poster that has a train with 3 parts. At this point we introduce using 3 sheets of paper stapled together. My ELL students had a hard time making the connection. My 1st graders were so successful with their sheets I thought I would do the same with the K paper. I took trains from their planning sheet and put them straight on to their picture box. Here is what it looks like.

Here is the Planning sheet:
This is the revamped writing pages:


I am not sure why they were scanned crooked but my students don't seem to mind so I left them. As you can see I also added letters and numbers to the trains to help them remember. With my ELL kids I do EVERYTHING I can to aid them and help them be successful.

At this time I thought it would be a good idea to add words to my 2nd graders writing sheets. Here is what those look like.
I decided I would give them 3 sheets instead of letting them choose how long their story would be.

I cant being to tell you how much this has helped my students. I didn't even realize what an impact it had made when I heard one of my 1st graders today reading the titles to see what went on that page. :)

Now it is time to share.
Do you want these writing sheets to use with your students? Feel free to grab any or all of them and use them with your students. The only think I ask is that you leave a comment because I like to feel loved. :) Enjoy!

K Planning Sheet
K 3 pg bk
1st Grade 5 Pg Story
2nd Grade Writing
The second grade paper is meant to print front and back.

This post is participating in Ladybug Teacher Files "Successes Linky Party." Hop on over there, by clicking on the boy, to see what other teachers are celebrating.

13 comments:

  1. Oh Ms. M, these are awesome!!! I love how they are differentiated for the different grades. And I absolutely LOVE how you used the clipart for the "who, when, and where". My older ELLs would like this too and it looks really cool, not too young!

    Don't you love when you see something you've differentiated really impact your students? I just love this, thanks so much for sharing and thanks for joining in on the linky party. Happy almost Friday to you!

    Kristen :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you so much Kristen. I'm glad you find them useful. I agree the clip art helps a lot. I think over the summer I will revamp the 2nd grade sheets to add pictures to them also.

    Happy almost Friday to you too. :) Tomorrow is a lan day for me so I am in heaven. :)

    Ms. M
    Ms.M's Blog
    A Teacher's Plan

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love these! At first, I thought you purposefully scanned them sideways to tease us!!! hahah, glad that was not the case! thanks for sharing like always :)

    Hadar
    Miss Kindergarten

    ReplyDelete
  4. ok we HAVE to be blog buddies. I'm loving your post and TOTALLY love Lucy Caulkins. I'm now a follower and you can find me at
    www.anotherdayinfirstgrade.blogspot.com =)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I can't get the scrib pages to show anything. I love the examples though!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Tiff,

    It looks OK to me. I will get someone else to check it out.

    Ms. M
    Ms.M's Blog
    A Teacher's Plan

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hello! I have searched hard to find a reliable and best research paper writing service and finally i got a good option for my needs as Evolution Writers

    ReplyDelete
  8. The writing blank papers will produce much of the better results among the students and they would further be able to initiate with such evident guides. summarize my article

    ReplyDelete
  9. Can I get these papers? It tells me I need to pay to scribd for the free downloads.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for the comment. Please come back again.