Writing celebration

Lucy and I have a love-hate relationship. Lucy Caulkins that is. While I adore her theory and many of her ideas for structuring Writers Workshop, I often

Publishing parties and other ways to motivate students to write

Hello friends! This is Cara Taylor from Creative Playground and I'm so happy to be learning and sharing with you today! Since we're at that half-way mark in the school year, many of us are at that point when our kiddos are nearing the end of publishing a writing piece. If you have or are planning to hold an Author Celebration or Publishing Party, make sure to keep reading to discover... We could go on for days talking about how to create a positive celebration experience, but I've narrowed…

Becoming a published author is an achievement worth celebrating! Here are our top 4 publishing party ideas to celebrate with your #proudauthors.

Completing a writing unit is a HUGE accomplishment no matter what grade level you teach. Whether you teach Lucy Calkins' Writer's Workshop, district mandated

I always tell students that there are no set rules for writing and they can write whatever they like. Creative writing should be fun, playing games is good way to help develop story ideas. Perhaps one of the reasons children can be reluctant to write creatively is they are insecure about their spellings, grammatical or … Continue reading "Creative writing for elementary students"

The writing unit is over and you're about to start a new genre. But, wait! Celebrate all of that hard work with an author's celebration! Read this blog post for planning tips!

It's the middle of your writing block and you sidle up to a student to have a writing conference. And it goes great. You feel like you made a difference with that kid. You feel like you accomplished something. But then you start doing the math... "Let's see, I just spent 8 minutes with this student, so at this rate it'll only take me... hmmm... 9,000 years to meet with everyone." It quickly gets overwhelming and you may start wondering, why even bother? Holding one-to-one writing conferences…

One of my top goals this year is to convince my kids that they are writers. Writing is not just something your teacher makes you do. It is a way to express yourself. I feel like one of the best ways to get through to my kids is to give them authentic purposes for their writing. As we neared the end of writing personal narratives, we decided to have a Publishing Party. We invited the principal, the class across the hall, and few other guests! The kids were pumped and worked extra hard to…

Twelve Ways to Celebrate Writing: Here are 12 ways to help the children WANT to write. All of them are FREE and most are low maintenance!