This week, we started a series of mini-lessons of "writing for different purposes." This will expose our young writers to different types of writing. On Monday, we talked about the excitement we have when we recieve something in the mail. It could be a catalog with our name, a postcard, a package, or even a letter. A letter! It has an envelope, certain words, names, and an address written on it to ensure delivery. The stamp is required to make sure it makes its way through the post office. Well, we realized- as exciting as it can be to receive a letter, we need to send them too. So, we all embarked on writing a letter to someone who we know. Our daily morning message is in letter format, so the Black Bats we already quite familiar and were excited to write the date, names etc... We shared our letters with the class on Wednesday, and worked on getting them folded in the envelopes and addressed. Hopefully some of you may see your letter soon!

This week on Wednesday we took time to share our special items we collected in our brown bags. After Anna shared a few of her special momentos to represent important times and people in her life, we had good ideas about what we could bring in. In this Kindergarten writing curriculum, we realize that these young authors mainly write about what is most special in their lives. We write about our families, our pets, our friends, and our homes. This activity, which highlighted each student as having something special and sacred to share, was a time to learn a bit more about our friends that we may not have known, and at same time give us an idea for a writing prompt for days to come!

We have a classroom of young authors! "Green Journal Time" is a coveted and favorite time amongst this group. As they become more familiar with sight words and the act of sounding our words, the stories are really flowing. We had mini-lessons this week which focused on how ullistrations are so important and that our illustrations should match so closely with the story, that the "reader" would be able to undertand what is happening, whether there were words or not. Another mini-lesson introduced to the use of labeling, which is an entirely different set writing skills.

During our green journal part of the day (as the children so fondly call it) we really relax, and write..and write....and write! This time on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays is the longest uninterupted time in our entire week. We always meet on the carpet for a mini-lesson and then we relaocate to our seats where the ideas start to flow. In our classroom, we focus on our ideas, we feel safe to take risks in our writing, we ask for help, we have various resources to help us grow and we share at the end if we choose! This week some of our mini lesson topics included, making a chart of family members and displaying it so we can use it in our writing, visualizing our story in our head before we put it on paper, and discussing the environment of our classroom during this time. (See picture.)