School Snapshots

Sadly, summer is nearly over and it's time to get back into school mode.  With school now on my mind, I decided to update one of my favorite resources.  It's a great resource for students to reflect on special days and events during the school year.  I love to save all the pages that my students work on and add them to their writing portfolios at the end of the year.

Here is a peek at what is included:

These monthly reflection pages were just added.

 

I'd love to give a flip booklet to the first 3 people that comment below.  Simply leave your e-mail and I'll send it your way.

 

Writing Portfolios

The year is winding down and it's about that time to start putting our portfolios together.  I actually have two portfolios.  One is filled with their work from all subject areas, and the other is put together into a booklet to create our Writing Portfolio.  Here are pics from the past couple years.  I definitely love using the large, 2 gallon ziploc bags. They fit everything perfectly and their work stays neat and tidy on the way home.

Here is last year's writing portfolio:

I absolutely love teaching little ones to write.  It is honestly my favorite subject to teach.  I LOVE to hear them squeal with delight when I say that we will start a new writing piece today.  I love the  anticipation they have as I start to share my own personal story at the start of each mini-lesson.  I can see their little minds turning as I'm passing out their writing paper.  I definitely think a love for writing is infectious!  You can get the portfolio covers for free by clicking HERE.

I keep all their writing during the year, so it can be compiled into their portfolio.  I include all of their pieces from my Writing Piece of the Month resource. I also include their Poetry Journals, as well as their writing pieces that go along with our Reading Street stories.

When we read, A Birthday Basket for Tia, they wrote about a special birthday. Click the image below to get the FREEBIE.

 I have most of my writing templates on my school computer, I will have to post some of the other writing papers in my next post.  I will also be back to post pics of their portfolios.  I always say I'm going to be more organized with their portfolio work and it just NEVER happens.  I have piles everywhere!!!  If you have any good ideas for storing portfolio work, please share.  I need a much better system.
 

Writing Piece of the Month

I am back to school and getting back into the swing of things.  My kiddos have gotten off to a great start.  I will be back to post classroom pics very soon.  Today, I wanted to share my newest writing resource that I can't wait to get going in my classroom.  I spent a large chunk of my summer working on it and it's finally done- YAY!

My goal for this resource was to have a fun writing activity each month that I could compile together at the end of the year to make a writing portfolio.  This is completely separate from the writing pieces we do in Writers' Workshop.  These writing activities are seasonal pieces that go along with popular children's books.

This is a great way to expose children to a variety of writing genres and great literature.  Here is a peek at what is included:

There are 15 different activities included that encompass 11 different genres.  

I can't wait to get started with my students!  I'm going to start this week with the 2 August activities.  It's still early in the year, and they are still getting to know each other better, so it's perfect timing.

These are the books I will be using for this resource, but there are so many other great books that can be used in addition or in lieu of the ones I listed.  Mine are merely suggestions.

If you are interested, you can check it out in my TPT store by clicking here, and I would love to give it for free to the first 2 people that leave a comment.

Portfolio Cover Pages

Just a quick post to share a couple freebies.  The last week of school for our students is here.  I always wrap up this last week by putting together our yearly Writing Portfolios and also our 2nd Grade Portfolios.  Their  2nd Grade Portfolios contain work samples from the entire school year.  I've tried lots of different methods of storing their portfolio work.  My favorite is to slide it all into a large 2 gallon ziploc bag.  It fits nicely, and it gets home safely.  I used to use large sheets of construction paper stapled together to make a large carrier. They looked great, but they ended up losing half of their work as they traveled down the hallway.  This year, I'm going to run the cover page on bright colored cardstock, so it can be seen through the front of the bag.  My teacher buddy had that idea and I loved it.

If you are a Kinder-5th grade teacher, and in need of Portfolio covers, you can get them below for free. 

Update: I also added a page that says scrapbook instead of portfolio.  I like to include art pieces that go with some of their writing, and once I tied them together with twine, they really looked like scrapbooks.

These are my portfolios from last year:

Here are my portfolios from this year.  I stayed simple this year.  I went ahead and skipped the ribbon, but I still think they turned out great.  My students were very proud of them.

Writing Portfolios

I got a bit overzealous at the end of this year.  We made portfolios containing samples of their work throughout the year.  We also made these Writing Portfolios.  I saved all their writing during the year, so we could compile it into a Writing Portfolio at the end of the year.  Needless to say, it took a whole corner to house all of my work samples.  I think I mentioned before that I am a bit of a hoarder.  Our Writing Portfolios contained lots of different genres-  All About Books, How To's, Friendly Letters, Biographies, Narratives, Small Moments, Fables, Persuasives, and Poetry.  They took a lot of time to put them together.  But, my students were gems and really did most of it all by themselves!

I love the covers that children create for their own stories.  I had to share just a few...

All About Books

Fables

 Moral- Being a good friend.

The worst best friend...LOL

 Moral- Kindness

Small Moments