Writing Idea: Caption This!

I am a lucky teacher to have an LCD projector and an Elmo!  If you don't have such technologies NO WORRIES!  You can print out the picture and hang it up, use it as a writing center idea, or as a group activity.

I will go on the hunt through the wonderful world wide web to look for amazing fiction and nonfiction photos to share with my students.  I carefully select them to go with the genre of writing I am teaching too.  I show the photo to the students and I may ask them to write a story using the picture or use speech bubbles with quotes.

Another application of "Caption This" use a paint program or Microsoft PowerPoint to make a book using the photos you've selected.  It is important to have students not only use writer's workshop through their notebook but also explore other avenues to promote technological literacy too!

Here is an example:  Class, take a moment to look at the picture.  Where is this photo taking place, who or what is in the picture, what's happening, what do you think will happen next?
You could also let the students briefly discuss the picture with a partner to get ideas.

The Writer's Notebook

I currently teach 2nd grade and spent a lot of time researching and trying out different ideas for a "writer's notebook" that was appropriate for my grade and age level.

What is a writer's notebook?  I believe it to be a special space for students to collect and try ideas!  Now, when you have a "collection" of ideas you need a place to put it.  In the back of the notebook I gave the students a large manila envelope that just fit on the inside back cover.  I told the kids this is where you can store special items.  These items could be special photos of memories, vacations, things they found in a magazine.  They could put something like pressed flowers & leaves, song lyrics, post-its, and poems.  They could keep anything to give them inspiration for writing "from the heart".

Here is a sample picture of the type of envelope I used:  It can be plain or you can have the kids decorate it.


Personalize:  Before we get started as a class, I explain to my students that this is their notebook and we want to make it our own.  I invite the kids to take it home and decorate the outside covers, front and back.  They can use glitter, glue pictures, draw pictures on the covers.  Again, this is to get them excited about writing!  This decorating process is important because not only does it make it "their own" it helps give them another place to look when they experience the dreaded "writer's block"!

I also saved a few pages in the front of their writer's notebook to put categories and topics to write about.  Here are a few I've used this year and in the past as a "writer's idea bank".  The following links are from teacherspayteachers.com.  The links I am sharing are free to download for classroom use.

About Me:  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/All-About-Me-Pennant-Bunting-781564
This is a really cute banner flag.  You can have your students cut out the banner and glue it right into the notebook.  I love the shapes and the colors on it.

Thing I Love: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/i-Love-1106078
There are two things on this activity you can use.  I use the heart and have the students write words or draw pictures of thing they love.  You don't have to copy and print it.  You can have the students make up their own heart too.  I have also used construction paper hearts.  I let the kids pick any color heart they want too.  Here is an example I have found and used below.


My Favorite Things: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Favorite-Things-1053993
This graphic organizer is great!  The students answer the questions and write in their favorite song, favorite thing to do after school, and much more.  The students can also color it in when their done.  I have my students lightly color the boxes in when they're done.

No More Skipped Pages!:  There are a few things you can do for this.  I have found if I used paper bookmarks, they would fall out and get lost.  You can glue a ribbon to the book long enough that the kids can move it as they write from page to page.  I also found a lot of success with BIG clips similar to these below:  As an organizational strategy, I have groups of students by color pods.  I simply match their classroom color to the color of their clip.  Here is the type of clip I used.  I found these at the Dollar Tree!

Other clip ideas could be the BIG paper clips or even wooden clothespins.  Use what words for you and your students :)

Evolution of a Child's Writing

Children go through many stages of writing.  As a child goes through these stages, one realizes it is such an amazing process.  Always celebrate it!



In the beginning stages and emerging scribbles, you may not be able to tell what the child is drawing or writing.  Let them tell you about it and get excited!  Always praise your child to encourage their continued development in becoming a wonderful little writer.

As your child starts to get better hand control, you will start to see some recognizable pictures.  Encourage them to label their picture.  Pretty soon, you will start to see some "mock letters" as they begin to learn letters and sounds.

As a child begins to recognize letter - sound relationships, you will see them transition from random strings of letters to spaces between them to show "words".  As the child gets a better grasp on letter sound relationships, they begin to match sounds with their letter.  You will also see children developing writing behaviors such as writing from left to right.

Other note worthy transitions are seeing the beginning letter with other letters behind to symbolize "that's a word".  Then, the beginning and ending letters of a word.  For example for the word cat a child might write "coyt".

As students learn their high frequency words and other spelling vowels, vowel teams, digraphs, etc, they begin to transition into two word sentences.  As they start expanding their ideas from thought to paper, students will phonetically spell words too.  Let you child know this is okay!

When I teach writing to students, one of the first lessons they learn is to try and "sound it out".  If after they write it and stretch the sounds it doesn't "look right", I ask the kids to underline the word and then, come back to it.  This writing strategy helps the children focus on getting their thoughts on paper first before they lose it.  If a child's focus is primarily on spelling the word correctly in the beginning stages of writing "draft phase" I find that they lose their purpose for writing.  I have the students free write about the topic or form of writing in the draft stages.  As we move through the writing process, the students can pick and look up words later.

Here is also a great link I found that also explains the stages of writing that young children go through.  I hope you find it interesting!

"Writing Stages"
http://wwcsd.net/~goodwinm/Writingstages.htm