Daily Five - Chapter Six

I'll admit it...Work on Writing is sometimes a challenge for me!  I started teaching using Lucy Calkins' method of Writing Workshop.  I find Work on Writing to be very similar.  Some years I have classes that can write and write forever.  Other years, not so much.  I find myself giving out optional writing topics and doing more prescribed writing.  Last year I even felt the need to tell students that they must write at least one side of a page.   I've not done that before!  Although I've always taught specific lessons and brainstormed with the students topics for writing, I plan to do more of this next year.  I feel that it is important for children to have the choice of what they want to write about, but in second grade this seems too much for many of the children.  

I don't have enough time to do Work on Writing during my Daily Five block, so I am going to have writing be a separate block.  I will start with a mini-lesson or larger lesson each time.   One writing that we do every Monday is to write about the weekend.   Maybe later in the year the students will be better able to choose their own writing topic on other days. We'll see what happens; this is still a journey for me.  

Last year during Word Work I started with having 2 groups of students working on different words.  One group was working on first grade words that they still needed to master.  The other group was working to identify and record new words that they found in their reading.  They were WAY beyond the second grade word list.  A couple of times a week I used Work Work time for spelling practice.  This year our Word Wall Words will be different than our spelling words, so I am still mulling over how to handle the time.  It's definitely not a "one way fits all" time of day!!
On another note, I am looking forward to going back to school.  In our district, we can't go into our rooms during the summer.  The day we can go back is Aug 6th.  My husband is even taking off the day to help me!  I have to move rooms this year and lots of materials found their way home. Last weekend I spent time deep cleaning the microwave, dishwasher and washing machine.  That's a sure sign that I need to get back to work:)

OOPS!!  I completely forgot to link back to the blog roll and thank Jenn from Best Practices 4 Teaching for hosting this. You can find her HERE!