Our first official bulletin board, "Ropin' In Kindergarten Writers", proudly displays the first "written" works of some of our Kindergarten students. In Writer's Workshop, students are learning how to tell a "small moment" (personal narrative) story by first, planning their story and then illustrating it through pictures. When the children are finished, they are able to staple it and then have created their own book. We make anything in their lives a small moment story. For example, in the first set of pictures, Lauren went in the Jeep to go to Target; shopped for clothes; and then went out of the store with her cart. In the second writing sample, Chatfield was at the beach and saw a live conch in the puddles of water; walked up a sand hill; and then, when leaving the beach, told his dad to "Hurry up!" The third story is from Mackenzie. She was in the back yard; then played hide and seek; finally, another friend came over and they played on the swings. In teaching the children to write stories in this way, we are getting away from the one page drawings and into making books out of our stories. We will progress from this into labeling the pictures, writing sounds down that they hear, and then sentence strings. The children learn that anything can be a story: going to the movies, the store, the park, or having dinner. We don't want stories to be only about going to Disney or Sea World. Every day there is a story to work on and a new one to write...remember "when you are done, you've really just begun" especially in Writer's Workshop!
