Mrs. Parisi's Kindergarten Class

Wow! I can't believe it's May already! Seriously, where does the time go? The expression "time flies" sure does ring true, for my classroom and with my own little one. The littles in my class have already started to lament over this year, saying, "I'm going to miss you when I'm in grade one!" and the truth is, I'm going to miss them too. My own daughter will be going to grade one, so I'm also sad to see her leave K! (especially since she was right next door to me!).

I wanted to do a post about Guided Writing. Writing happens all the time in my classroom. It happens at a variety of learning centres that have specific materials placed at them (for example, cards and letters at our Dramatic post office), or spontaneously as a result of play. The students, at times, decide to draw, label and write about ideas that have been sparked from their play (for example, a castle they've built with the blocks). Even though the students are writing in a variety of meaningful ways at centres, I still like to conduct guided writing so that we can think, talk about and plan writing! We usually write in our memory books, or journals (both shown below). I can't believe how far the kids have come with their writing! Seriously! The biggest surprise is with my J.K. students, some of whom could only scribble write or draw pictures to convey a message (beginning stages of writing), but now are writing sentences independently after much modelling and guidance.

Recently, we have written about our Mother's and how we can celebrate all the wonderful things they do for us!

I can mac a pichr for mom. ( I can make a picture for mom).

I can givie my mom a givt ava flowers. (I can give my mom a gift of flowers).

I can giv fawrs too monm. (I can give flowers to mom).

****This is a J.K. student****

BRAVO!!!

I can get my mom pris. (I can get my mom pictures).

****This is also a J.K. student****

WAY TO GO!

These kids have come so far in independent writing!

In preparing for Graduation, we thought and talked about what we want to be when we grow up!

When I grow up I want to be a Hockey playr. (player)

When I grow up I want to be a Balrina techr. (Ballerina teacher).

Guided writing allows me to go over specific writing conventions (expressing a complete thought, beginning with a capital letter, using finger spaces, ending with punctuation, etc.). I plan to do more 'free' writing with the kids in the Guided Writing format, where the kids will decide more often what they would like to write about. I've made up a couple of posters to help us out and they are FREE in my TPT shop. Click the pictures below to get your copy!