Weekend News!

One of the ways I like to get my students writing is to have them write about something they have done.  My favorite way to do that is Weekend News.  Every week on Monday we spend time writing about what we did over the weekend.  It can be anything that they did - played with a friend, visited Grandma and Grandpa, ordered pizza for dinner - it doesn't have to be super exciting, they just have to tell me what happened.

During the first few weeks of school I let them write pretty freely-not focusing on mechanics or length.  In about the middle of October though, we start using some sentences starters to set up our writing for the day.  They don't have to use the ones we come up with, but they do need to start their writing with something similar.  At this point in the year they are also some mechanics and should be writing at least three full sentences.

This writing from the same student.  You can see the growth they have had in just a few weeks!

Sometimes they really get going on the writing and don't get time to work on their-which is totally fine.  It's writing time, isn't it!

This is a great way to see their writing grow and change throughout the year.  It's fun to pull these out at conferences and look at the growth they have made.  By the end of the year they are often writing more than one page and their sentences have gotten much more interesting and complex.  

(Can you tell these two hung out over the weekend :-) )

Another part of this is the sharing part.  They absolutely LOVE this part.  We sit in a circle and each person gets to read their Weekend News.  I give them the option to pass, but it rarely happens.

Click here to get a copy of our Weekend News!
The pictures show my old copies, but since I have no idea where I got that newspaper graphic I decided to make a new cover :-)