My goal for them is to use the writing offices two or three times a week to begin to practice getting their thoughts down on paper. I'm not a big fan of invented spelling, simply due to the fact that, if Josh gets it in his head the wrong way, that's the way it's going to stay. I'm not as worried about that with Megan and she has been starting to write things on her own, which is very encouraging! She's the only one of my three kids who has done that one her own. She loves to write notes, poems and songs.
Anyway, I'm getting side-tracked. Trying to keep away from invented spelling is the main goal of the writing mini-offices right now. On the left-hand side, the kids will find the days of the week, the months of the year and color words. On the center is a "word wall" with many of the commonly used words listed.
The right-hand is the part I'm most excited about. Because I know how hard it can be for kids to think of what to write (I mean, just thinking of how to spell the words to get them down on paper is enough to think about), I left a big blank space. That big, blank space will be filled with one of these:
...any one of a few dozen pictures that I clipped from magazines this weekend. I cut out anything that looked interesting, showed someone doing something that could provide a story starter or showed a picture of something that could be described.
These pictures will be clipped into place with a "today's topic" clip:
The clips were simple. I cut a 3X5 index card in half, wrote "today's topic" on it and "laminated" it with packing tape. I then hot glued the card to a clothes pin. I did re-do it after taking this picture. The card was low enough to cover up some of the really small pictures, so I moved it to the top of the clip. There is also a "5 W's" hand to remind the kids of the questions that their writing can answer.Helpful Links:
Printables, including word wall
Printables, including color words
Mini-office covers, 5 W's hand and more
Seriously -- can you just make the math & writing mini offices for us and sell them? You are far more on the ball than I am. ;)
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas!
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm much too much a self-critic to do anything like that to sell to someone else. I'd drive myself insane! lol
ReplyDeleteI'm with Angie.. I want one. Leave it to you to help me out again. What fantastic ideas!
ReplyDeleteThey look great. I need to pull ours out again for my son - thanks for the reminder. :o)
ReplyDeleteI want to sit down and write in one of the offices, so I'll bet your kids will like it too.
ReplyDeleteI love the sidebar snowflakes
Christine Guest
After your post about the last mini-office, I made a writing office for my dd. Such a great idea, and the links you posted were so helpful. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteJust a curious question: do you still use the BIG writing center(I know this post is two years ago!)with your workboxes? If so, how do you assign it-with a "center" card in a box?
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to put our Wbox system together, and I LOVE your writing center!
Your blog has been so helpful and informative. Thank you for taking time to share all your great ideas AND some of your struggles. It's encouraging!
April,
ReplyDeleteWe're not currently using the big writing center -- or the workboxes. The workboxes worked great for us for a time and there is a definite possibility that we'll go back to them at some point. And, the writing center is neatly folded up and stored with our school stuff, ready to be pulled out again.
If, at some point, we go back to both, I'll just put a card in one of the workbox folders that says, "Go work in writing center." I've done that for other things -- like working with an online math program -- and it worked well.
Hope that helps!