Hi there! Are you finding that your students are in need of
a little mid-year motivation to get them writing? Today I am here from
K's Classroom Kreations to share a few of my favorite ways to inspire young
writers. I have found that when my students are excited about their writing tasks and also feel like they have the support they need, then even my most reluctant writers are willing to give it a try!
The first way to get kids excited about writing is to show
them that it is an important (and fun) part of their day. Designate a special
place in your classroom to store paper, writing tools, and resources. I fill
mine with colored pens, mechanical pencils, erasers, highlighters, and more.
Students have free access to use these tools during their independent writing
time each day. After all, if a green pen makes writing more exciting for a 6
year old, then why not?
Let’s face it, writing can sometimes seem like a tedious or
daunting task when you are just learning how to be an author. One section of my
Writing Center is known as our “Inspiration Station”. This area is filled with
wooden craft pieces, seasonal word walls, store bought dice with story starters,
and writing prompts. Students do not need to use this area, but have learned
that it is here for support if they get stuck.
I made this mini word wall out of a tri-fold board. I didn't have much space on my walls and honestly hated climbing up on counters to add words (the rare occasions that I remembered). I just used library pocket cards with index cards inside each. When my students need help with a word, they simply take out the card to see if it's on there already. If not, I will add it for them. I also used plastic page protectors stapled to the board to hold seasonal word walls. Just slide a new page in each month and you are done!
Something new that I introduced this year was a sensory box
for a more hands-on experience. For
example, our beach box contained kinetic sand, shovel, bucket, goggles, flip
flops, ocean scented wax tart candles, seashells, and other tropical goodies.
Students can physically smell, feel, and see objects belonging to a theme and
then in turn write about it. This idea can be used for any seasonal theme,
science topic, or even as a way to incorporate multiculturalism.
This has to be one of my favorite ideas….ever. Simply
purchase a variety of napkins from your local dollar store or wait until
seasonal items go on sale (or become known as the crazy leftover napkin hoarder
at birthday parties…no judgments). Staple blank paper inside of each
“mini book”. Students can then use the theme as inspiration for a personal
narrative, poem, opinion piece, or informational text. Imagine the look your
kids would have if they saw Transformers, Frozen, and other fun topics! I
promise you…they will want to dive in to writing!
Napkin books became such a HUGE hit in my classroom that I also decided to make seasonal prompts. If you are interested in having hundreds of opinion, narrative, informational, and creative prompt pages all ready to staple inside of your napkins, be sure to check out my blog post
here all about them, or my
Growing Bundle in my Teacher Pay Teachers store.
Here is a solution for those of you who are tired of hearing
“I don’t know what to write about” 100 times each day. I’ll be honest, this
activity totally came out of spur of the moment necessity and lasted all of 10
minutes….BUT I cannot tell you how helpful it has been! As a class we
brainstormed dozens of ideas that the kids could write about during Work on
Writing Time (independent writing). I wrote each idea on an index card and had
students illustrate them. They LOVED it! We then hung all of the cards on the
board and now we have a whole wall of ideas for those moments they get “stuck”.
Last but not least, allow Mentor Texts to truly be used as
inspiration. When you are reading to your students don’t be afraid to point out
great descriptive language, style of writing, or author’s voice. After each
read aloud we also talk about how this book could inspire us to write a similar
piece.
A few of our favorites from our Personal Narrative unit
included:
- When I Was Five by Arthur Howard: Students then wrote about
what they liked when they were 5 or 6.
- The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer: Student’s first
listened to just the descriptive language and then drew pictures of what they
thought the room looked like. Next students wrote their own pieces about a
special room (real or imaginary) with the focus on using great describing
words.
- Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad,
Day by Judith Viorst: After hearing about Alexander’s day, students drew 6 scene
pictures from either their best or worst day. They then used the pictures to
help sequence events and complete their writing pieces.
I hope that you were able to find a few new ideas and are
now feeling inspired! I had a blast sharing with you on the Who’s Who blog for
the first time. If you liked what you read I would love for you to connect with
me through my own
blog,
facebook page, or
Teacher’s Pay Teachers store.
Thanks again for stopping by!
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