The Writing Center is my favorite place in our classroom.
Why? "Work on Writing" is a place where students can practice writing every single day!
I'd love to take you through my Work on Writing center, and explain a little bit about the choices students have. PS - If you're wondering about the structure of when and how students visit Work on Writing, visit this blog post to learn more.
For now, let's dive into Work on Writing!
Here is what my Work on Writing center looks like:
THE SETUP
- The drawer set is from Michaels. Teacher tip: remove the knobs for easy labeling!
- Speaking of labeling, the drawer labels are from The Organised Teacher over on TPT. They are editable, and F-R-E-E!
- Thematic Vocabulary Cards are from Cara Carroll over on TPT.
- I used clear frames from Amazon to display my "Work on Writing" center sign. This helps provide a clear visual of what and where the Work on Writing center is throughout the year.
You can download your free sign HERE if you'd like!
In my Work on Writing Center, I include seven choices: Let's go through them together!
PICK AND WRITE
This activity comes along with Cara's Thematic Vocabulary Cards. The students practice writing sentences featuring any of the vocabulary words displayed in the writing center! This option is great for working on sentence structure, capitalization, and punctuation.
DRAW AND LABEL
More suited for beginning writers, this writing choice ALSO comes along with the Thematic Vocabulary Cards!
FREE WRITE
This is exactly what it sounds like! Students are free to write about whatever interests them. For those students who may have writers block (I was this kid!), I LOVE the monthly prompts from Heidi and Emily over at Second Story Window.
I typed out the prompts, and stuck them on fun cutouts that you can find at Dollar Tree, or any other teaching store! These prompts are switched out every month.
HOW TO
How To Writing is so much fun for students, because they get to be the expert on writing out steps for how to do something they're great at. Students also practice important learning concepts of using temporal words (first, next, then...), and being descriptive while using short, sequential steps!
RECIPE
Writing recipes allow for students to be both creative and organized! They need to provide a list of ingredients, as well as step-by-step directions for how to make their delicious dish. Yum!
LETTER
The parts and purpose of a Friendly Letter is a must-do lesson to introduce this center! One of the most important teaching points is why we write friendly letters, and who we write letters to (Family members, relatives, people we don't see that often...). This helps from friendly letters turning the corner and becoming "notes" that students just write to one another. 😉
LIST
We all make lists! This writing center is my very favorite. To introduce this center, we talk about when and why people might make lists. Grocery lists! Lists to remember tasks! You name it. Much like the thematic vocabulary cards, I display a seasonal collection of List Writing Options in our Writing Center.