Tell Me a Story! Using Picture Prompts to Build Students' Comprehension!

When I was teaching, I loved teaching writing! I know it is not loved by many, but the 45 minutes of writing workshop that we had each day were the most enjoyable for me. My school didn't have a writing curriculum, so I searched on TPT and found some wonderful resources that were fun and engaging for my students, and most importantly, helped them improve as writers! 

In the primary grades, much emphasis is put on the drawings that coincide with your writing. I remember telling my students daily (multiple times, daily) that their pictures would have to match their writing (I always had one or two who would draw their favorite cartoon character or a random ninja😋). We would also work on adding details to our pictures, creating anchor charts that showed different levels of detail and color in our pictures. I loved seeing my kiddos referencing our anchor charts and spending lots of time adding details and color to their drawings. I did not love seeing a decrease in time spent on writing. 😨 We held a much needed picture intervention and as a class agreed that Mrs. O needed to give a thumbs up before students could start their pictures. We had smooth sailing after that. 

I've been out of the classroom for a full school year now and I still think about our picture problem. I think about how hard my students worked to draw pictures that represented their writing and how this was helping them understand the importance of connecting the two. 

When you begin teaching children to read, you teach them to read the words and the pictures in books. Babies, toddlers, preschoolers, they're all reading the pictures in books and using what they see to build their understanding of a text. When students enter into the primary grades, you go on picture walks for the books that you are going to read and discuss what you see and why it may be significant to the text. We use pictures to make predictions, to activate prior knowledge, to make connections, and to ultimately, build comprehension. If we were doing this in reading, why were not doing it in writing?! 

After much thought and planning, I decided to create something to help with my dilemma. Picture prompts! 

I recently finished, "Tell Me a Story- Picture Prompts", for the month of September. The set includes 20 prompts across 4 themes, with 5 prompts for each theme. There is also a page of lined paper. 

The first theme is back to school!

The second theme is family/ at home!

 The third theme is autumn!

The final theme for September is apples!

I designed these prompts to be used in grades K-2. The purpose of them is to not only work on your kiddos' writing ability, but to help them improve their comprehension skills. To use in kindergarten, simply begin by having your students identify what they see in the pictures and write the words on the lines. 

Your high flyers may write some simple sentences, while it may take a little longer for your low babies to get there.

Towards the end of kindergarten through the end of first grade, your students may begin to expand on their sentences. They will see that they can move beyond identifying what is in the picture and demonstrate that they comprehend what is going on in the picture. 

Towards the end of first grade and throughout second grade, most students will begin to understand that the one picture that they are seeing can be apart of a bigger picture. Although they cannot see that picture, it doesn't mean that they cannot create it with their words.

"Tell Me a Story- Picture Prompts" make a great addition to writing workshop, a writing center, an activity for early finishers, morning work, or as an addition to a sub folder! Remember your students are unique and their writing abilities will vary greatly, but picture prompts can adapt to their needs without any extra prep. 

If you would like to try a FREE week of September's picture prompts, click HERE!

If you love the sample, you can buy September's picture prompts HERE!

Keep an eye out for October's picture prompts by following my TPT store HERE!

Contraction Cupcakes

Since I’m no longer teaching kindergarten, I’ve been able to focus on creating resources for other grade levels. I love making resources for the little kiddos, but I’ve really been enjoying making fun activities for the big kids! Last weekend I was planning some projects for second grade and I knew that, “Contraction Cupcakes” would be a perfect way to start!

Contraction Cupcakes is a contraction matching game, in which students match two words (top of the cupcake) to the contraction that the two words form (bottom of the cupcake). 32 cupcakes are included, allowing your students to work on many of the most popular contractions that they will encounter in their learning.

There is also a recording sheet for students to complete after matching the cupcakes. This is great for accountability, as it allows you to check your students’ work and serves to help keep them on task.

Contraction Cupcakes is an activity that your students are sure to love! It works great as a literacy center, small group work, morning work station, or intervention activity! Check it out by clicking on the link above, or by clicking HERE.

CVC Write It or Build It!

Summer vacation is here (or almost here)!!!!!!! When I was teaching, the end of the year meant purging piles of papers, throwing out markers without caps, and not having to wake up to an alarm anymore! Amid all of the excitement of a stress- free and restful summer, I always spent my days off planning for the new school year. I was always more excited for the start of school as a teacher than I was as a student. I would spend my days creating activities, planning classroom layouts, and organizing my class library, again. I would think about who my new students would be and the differing needs that they would have. I would think about how my summer excitement would turn to anxiety as the start of the school year got closer and I would worry that I had the right learning activities for my new kiddos.

New students, especially in kindergarten, can be difficult. They come to school with a varying degree of abilities and experiences and finding meaningful and adaptable learning activities for them can be a challenge. With this in mind, I created, "CVC: Write It or Build It!" When I created this pack, I wanted to design something that was differentiated, so your planning and prep would be quick and easy, and so that your students' needs would be met. 

There are 4 different ways to use 192 picture strips (96 for writing and 96 for building) that are included. 

1. Write it: Students choose a strip and write the word of the picture on the line.

2. Write it w/ key: Students choose a color key and the coordinating strips. They then match the pictures on the strips to the pictures on the key, and use the key to help them write the word on the line. 

3. Build it: Students choose a strip and use magnetic letters or letter tiles to build the word of the picture in the box. 

4. Build it w/ key: Students choose a color key and the coordinating strips. Students match the pictures on the strips to the pictures on the key and use the key to help them build the word in the box. 

I think the keys are what make this product unique, as it provides support for your low babies who may not be able to sound out words yet. Your higher level students can also use the keys to check their work. 

After printing and laminating all of the pages, there are a few ways to store these activities. I would separate your "Write its" from your "build its". Then I would separate the strips and keys by color. Then you can store them in plastic baggies, plastic containers, or whatever storage solution works for you. I would keep some dry erase markers with the, "Write its" and some magnetic letters with the, "Build its". 

Thanks for taking the time to check this out! If you're interested in my, "CVC: Write It or Build It!" click the link above, or click HERE.

I'm Back!

Hi all!

It has been a while since I last posted on my blog. About a year and a half! 😲 

Shortly after my last blog post, I found out I was pregnant with my first child! 👶 After working exhausting days in a kindergarten class, I had little energy to work on my blog. So I took a break from blogging and also from teaching. I now stay at home with my almost 11 month old and am finally starting to have a little bit of time to recommit to my blog! Even though I'm no longer in the classroom, I have continued to create classroom resources, not just for kindergarten, but for other grades, too! My goal is to share those resources here with you! Stay tuned!

Farm Week!

We finished up our farm unit a few weeks ago and my students loved it! I was so excited to use my, "Writing on the Farm" pack, take a look at the fun we had!

We began our unit by discussing farmers. We made a class bubble map writing words and drawing pictures to describe what they do, what they wear, and what they work with. Students then completed their own bubble maps, sounding out words and/ or drawing pictures. I encouraged students to come up with their own ideas, instead of copying down the ones we wrote together. Check out some of their work!

 

I was so excited when I saw my students stretching out their words! I was even more excited when I saw that some that only drew pictures went back and tried to write words! They are doing amazing!

After discussing farmers, we moved on to pigs. I decided to have them label a pig as a work on writing activity during our reading center rotations. I started by making a larger version of our pig on chart paper and we discussed the different parts of a pig.

We began by sounding out the words in the word bank and then we set out to label. I left this chart posted in our classroom, so my kids could reference it if they needed to. They worked on labeling and coloring their own pigs during centers, then I made a bulletin board display of their hard work!

Didn't they come out cute!

The last animal that we studied during our farm unit was cows! Our curriculum map has us working on informative and explanatory writing in the fall, so we do a lot of, "Can, Have, Are" writing. This time I decided to have students complete a planning page and a final draft page. On the planning page, students wrote down one idea each for can, have, and are. We completed this together as it was our first time using this format.

We then took these ideas and transferred them to our final copy paper, where we worked on writing complete sentences. I used a tracing font to start the sentences, so my students just had to fill in the can, have, and are. It was a good way for us to discuss what does and does not sound like a complete sentence. We also reviewed the importance of spaces between our words and punctuation!

Some of my lower kiddos had trouble identifying what words to write and where to write them, so I used a highlighter to mark their papers. This helped immensely! I was so proud to see that they were all able to copy from near point and far point! It can be a difficult skill to learn. My students' cow writing came out so awesome that I decided to display it across from our pigs.

It's a little difficult to see in the picture, but trust me, it looks so cute!

I wish we could have spent more time on this unit, both my students and myself ADORED it! There are so many other animals that we could have studied and so many more fun activities we could have done! You can check out my, "Writing on the Farm" unit by clicking HERE. There are graphic organizers and writing pages for all kinds of farm animals! You can also pick up my, "Counting on the Farm" book for FREE!

-Mrs. O

Making Dismissal Easier with Backpack Tags!

Dismissal, for kindergartners, especially for the first few weeks of school, can be stressful and scary! It can also be that way for us teachers. 

Little friends standing and sitting about the room, while we calmly (yet a bit frantically on the inside), move children around and help them find their way to their buses or car pools without any tears or worries that they won't find their mommy and daddy. 

Trying to avoid this scenario has been one of my most prevalent thoughts this summer. I created these student dismissal tags so that they know how they are getting home, I know how they are getting home, and anyone who finds them wandering the halls during dismissal knows how they are getting home. 

I included six different cards, for the most popular ways that I thought students left school. These are car riders, after care, bike riders, day care, bus riders, and walkers. 

 I also included dismissal lists for you to post in your classroom so you have a quick reference, if needed. Simply write the students' names under their means of dismissal.

The final component is a form for parents/guardians to complete. I plan on having them fill it out during open house, so I can prepare tags for all the students before school begins and then attach them to their backpacks on the first day.

This form also helps if students have different ways of getting home on different days of the week. You could attach multiple tags to their backpacks and write the days they will be using each method of transportation on the back. 

These are for sale in my tpt store! If you like them you can check them out HERE!

-Mrs. O

Student Data Binder Covers

At my school, teachers keep data binders for all of their students. Data binders house monthly writing prompts, standardized assessment data, grades, and work samples. Each student has their own binder and uses them to guide our student led conferences. In the past, I've let students decorate their own binder covers using white printer paper, however, this year I decided to try something new and make binder covers for my students. 

Each binder cover has a line for the students to write their names and is designed with black line clip art and borders, so that students can color it to their liking. 

Here's a look at some that I did...
I couldn't find any crayons, so they're not as colorful as I would've like them to be
 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

These binder covers are FREE in my tpt store! To download, click HERE!