Our Writing Center

Hi everyone! 

 

I am so excited to talk to you about our writing center today! 

 

 

 

During our reading rotations, I use something very similar to the Daily 5 rotations. I don’t follow the Daily 5, but I really like the 5 different groupings and so I use them during guided reading. The five groupings are: Read To Self, Read To Someone, Listen To Reading, Word Work, and Work On Writing. 

 

I’ve struggled with the Work On Writing center for awhile. At first, my kids picked a prompt from my prompt jar that I made during my first year of teaching… Before I knew about TPT and I had actually typed out every prompt and then cut and glued each prompt on a piece of paper and then laminated that paper and then cut the prompts out. A lot of work went into those prompts. 

 

The prompts were great, but then I started thinking about how great it would be if this center reinforced the standards that I teach my kids throughout the year. Unfortunately, with such a big emphases on reading and math, writing gets pushed back a lot (which makes me sad because writing is my favorite). I still wanted them to have the chance to do creative writing, but also wanted to give them the option to practice what we are learning in class.

 

 

 

Our writing station has 8 different options. We practiced one option a day before diving into this center. 

 

The 8 different options are:

1. Writing Prompts:

 

 

3. Lists

 

 

6. How To Stories

7. Informative Writing- KWL Charts & Research Writing

8. Story Starters


9. Notecards

 

 

 

I’ve been asked about organization… And let me tell you… It took a lot for me to figure out how to organize all these papers! So, here’s some commonly asked questions and I hope my answers are helpful to you!

How do you organize the papers every month?

 

I bought this rainbow cart from Michaels. I made labels for each drawer. When I took this photo, I didn’t have a label for notecards because I ruined it when putting them on there (insert face palm here). However, I have all the labels now 😉 If you want these labels, you can get them here or you can click on the picture above.

Do you print all the papers for every week?


Nope. I pick one from each type of writing and print them and put them in the drawers.

How do your organize the materials after the month is over?

 

I bought these bins from Amazon (affiliate link) to store each month in. They’re the perfect size to hold all the writing prompts, story starters, signs, and extra pages that weren’t used.

If you’re interested in the writing center, click the picture below! It includes writing centers for every month August-May!

 

That’s how we use our writing center! If you have any questions, let me know and I would be happy to answer them!