Reader's and Writer's Workshop

Here is an update of what the children have been learning in Reader's workshop and Writer's workshop; two big components in our curriculum!

Reader's Workshop

The children have learned how to choose books that are a "good fit" for them by looking at the cover and at the pages of the book.  They have also learned three ways to read a book, which has helped everyone feel like a reader!

For a week, the mini-lessons focused on concepts of print, which children need to know how to follow print from left to right and top to bottom.

We then had our first Reader's Celebration by sharing, through an illustration, books we love to read.  

We are now in our second week of our new Reader's Workshop Unit: Powerful Partnerships.

During week 1 of our unit, the mini-lessons focused on establishing reading partners and teaching them how to interact appropriately with each other while sharing books.

This week, the children were given guidance in what they could share with each other during partner share time.  The children worked on sharing a favorite part, sharing an interesting part that makes them say "That's cool!" and sharing something new they learned.

Next week, the children will learn how to share something that has happened to them (a connection) and then we'll move onto learning how we can make a plan to share by marking the places in our books that we want to share using sticky notes!

Writer's Workshop

In writer's workshop, the children have been learning how to create WOW pictures.  They've been using this chart to understand what makes a picture a WOW picture.  This involves thinking about the setting and characters and making sure our characters have clothes!

The children also learned about labeling things in their pictures, which helps the reader to understand their story in a more concrete way.  We looked at how famous authors use labeling in their illustrations (Gail Gibbons and Lois Elhert) and the children also learned how to write the word me in their picture when they want to label themselves.  Me is also one of our new sight words.

This week, the children had to pick one piece of their writing that they wanted to fix up.  This included making their pictures WOW pictures, labeling and/or writing words, and adding a cover.  These pieces will be shared in partnerships next week as our Writer's Celebration.  Then, we'll start focusing on personal narratives (All About Me!).