Kindergarten writing activities set the stage for life-long learning and writing. This is a time to razzle dazzle your kids while still meeting your standards.
Did you know that high-achieving schools do two to six times as much authentic reading and writing as other schools?
Through teacher modeling and interactive writing experiences, we can have even our youngest students working in a non-fiction report writing format.
Primary writing has many stages. You will see your students:
- creating simple messages using visuals
- telling their stories or observations to an adult for scribing
- using spelling that incorporates their growing knowledge of how words work
Remember that this a time that is full of “firsts” so the experiences should be positive, exciting and set the stage for becoming independent writers.
Beginning Kindergarten Writing Ideas
Daily Sign In
Have each child sign their name as they enter the classroom. Place their picture by their typed name on the sign-in sheet to help with early identification. Later on you can add in last names, and even middle names.
Exit Ticket
My youngest son’s teacher is doing this right now and I love it. They write a short piece together on the smart board about what they learned during the day. This is emailed to the parents before the students get home.
Find the Wrong Word
Write a couple of sentences and spell a few Word Wall Words wrong. Hand out sitcky notes with the words written correctly and let the students work in pairs to find the wrong words. They can put the sticky notes over the misspelled words.
A Report Writing Format for Kindergarten
This report was shown to me by Paula (the teacher in the video). I was walking by in the hallway and stopped when I noticed these large circles with pictures and writing all over them. What in the world was she doing? I had to know.
Paula showed me these wonderful reports her 5 year olds had done. Their learning was evident and she was so excited talking about it. I was amazed at what the kids had accomplished.
Did you notice that in this lesson plan for report writing, Paula pulled together three things?
- her students’ curiosity of the world around them
- their need to express themselves through drawing
- a safe avenue for beginning attempts at words and sentence structure
After working together to research, formulate ideas and express their discoveries through writing, the kids were all given the opportunity to engage in oral discussion about all of the reports. It was set up as a question and answer time because young children are comfortable with that structure.
It was pretty incredible to hear 5 year olds discussing what makes a mammal, what a carnivore is, the differences between species and explaining how they chose to create captions and headings for their reports.
I don’t know how she stays sane all day, but I would love for my child to be taught some kindergarten writing activities by someone like her!