Writing Archives - Page 3 of 5

Simple Steps To Beginner Letter Practice

July 22, 2022 teachersbrain education, kindergarten survival, Math, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips, Writing

Letter writing is an important skill for early elementary or kindergarten students. They not only have to learn to recognize the letters and the sounds they make, but they also have to learn how to write them. This sounds simple, but to little learners, the fine motor skills needed for writing is something they are still perfecting.

There is a correlation between letter recognition fluency and successful reading development. As students learn how to write those letters, they learn to recognize them easily!

Here are some simple steps to practice letter writing.

Teach the proper pencil grip. Many kindergarten-level students don’t yet understand how to properly grasp a pencil so this is the first skill.
Letter formation. While this part of writing becomes second nature eventually, it takes a lot of practice and patience in the beginning.
Next, perfect those skills and make them legible! We’ve all seen those sweet sentences before students get their letters figured out. Lots of practice will make handwriting more legible.

So how do you practice writing letters?

Perhaps the most straightforward way is with fun kindergarten worksheets like letter tracing worksheets. These are simple but incredibly effective!

You can add some variety to students’ letter writing practice by trying out using markers and whiteboards, shaving cream on desks, sand, finger paint, and so much more.

I shared tons of fun ways to practice the alphabet in kindergarten in last week’s blog post. You can check it out here!

Looking for some letter writing and other kindergarten worksheets and activities? I have you covered!

This Kindergarten Everything Mega Bundle has everything you need for a fantastic year with your students with minimal prep.

Not only will you get letter practice sheets, but you’ll also get everything you need to teach kindergarten all year!

You’ll get engaging activities for every subject area in Kindergarten. This endless curriculum bundle has a massive amount of materials made with kindergarten in mind!

Year-Long Subjects
- Guided Reading
- Monthly Writing Themed Journals
- Morning Work Journals
- Kindergarten Math Centers
- Science
- Social Studies

Check out the YouTube tutorial below!

Reading Curriculum includes activities, lesson plans, and assessments for:
- Phonics
- Phonemic awareness
- Comprehension
- Vocabulary
- Fluency

Kindergarten Math Centers include activities, lesson plans, and assessments

Science includes activities, lesson plans, and assessments
Social Studies includes activities, lesson plans, and assessments
Bonus – Butterfly Life Cycle Flip Book
Writing Journals for every month
Bonus – Silly Story Starters and Kindergarten morning work

kindergarten activities and letter practice worksheets preview

What are your favorite letter practice activities for kindergarten? Let me know in the comments!

Spring Would You Rather Game For Elementary That Students Will Love!

April 1, 2022 teachersbrain Distance Learning, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips, Writing

There’s nothing I love more than when students get excited to learn. It’s the best feeling to see their faces light up as they fully engage in their lesson. It’s every teacher’s dream! However, it can be tricky to achieve. Especially as we approach the end of the school year. Students start to get a little restless so it takes a little creativity to really capture, and keep, their attention.

One of my favorite ways to do that is by playing games! Games in the classroom are proven to increase engagement, learning outcomes, and fun! In fact, research says that along with increased participation, playing games with your students can also encourage social and emotional learning and motivate students to take more risks.

One of my favorite games to play in the classroom has to be Would You Rather!

If you aren’t familiar, Would You Rather is a fun game where you have to choose between two different scenarios or items. For example, would you rather see a bird or a butterfly? These questions are intended to be silly and fun and encourage creative thinking. It’s guaranteed to get your students giggling.

With spring officially here, I created a spring-themed Would You Rather game that your students will love!

These Google Slides come with several questions to get your students thinking about spring. After making their choice, students will then use the paper provided to explain why they made that decision.

These Google Slides are interactive and editable. Which means you can change them up to fit your needs. Feel free to delete slides, add your own directions, or change the pictures as you see fit.

You can have students hold up one or two fingers to share what they would pick. It even comes with a movable highlighter to highlight your student’s most popular choice! This resource comes with 50 colorful slides for endless writing fun. If you are distance learning, this resource is easily adaptable to do digitally as well.

If you love this activity, you can also get it for every season!

The complete bundle comes with Would You Rather slides for Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. This means you get over 200 colorful slides. A great way to teach students the seasons as well!

What are your favorite games to play in the classroom? Let me know in the comments!

Looking for some more fun spring resources? Create a bunny trap with this resource!

Stop Motion Animation Activities To Encourage A Love of Creative Writing

January 21, 2022 teachersbrain Teacher's Pay Teachers, Winter, Writing

One of the most universally loved things right now is Disney movies. Frozen, Luca, Encanto… parents and kids alike love these movies. Which makes sense! The animation capabilities of these Disney creators are incredibly impressive.

Since it is something students love so much, naturally, I tried to think of ways to make it educational so they can enjoy it in the classroom as well. I found that stop-motion animation is a great introduction to animated movies and the enormous amount of skill, creativity, dedication, and art that goes into each movie.

It all starts with a good story! I found this way of approaching narrative, creative writing to be an extremely effective way to hook students into the concept because they want to create their own masterpieces.

With that in mind, I created a winter resource that will teach students about animation from a REAL Disney animator. How cool is that?!

This Stop Motion Animation Creative Writing three week unit is jam-packed with activities to get your students fully engaged in the creative process.

The focus of this resource is creative narrative writing through the integration of beginning animation concepts. The real Disney animator will get your students inspired and get those creative juices flowing.

The Animator Spotlight and Animator Interview will teach students everything they need to know to complete an animator study report.

Teaching students about short animation will help them better understand sequencing events and how to make their own creative endings. After that, students can use the printables provided to design their own book covers!

You’ll get everything you need with this resource. This includes lined paper along with writing toppers to make displaying your students’ work in your classroom easy and cute.

In addition to these activities, you’ll also get narrative writing choice boards, narrative lead ideas, creative writing story elements, a snowman flip book, and so much more. Furthermore, the stop motion animation directions will teach you how to create an animation with your students easily with tools you already have.

I included lots of extras with this resource for centers like the snowman drawing instructions and comprehension checks.

Interested in learning more? Check out my video here!

Looking for more winter activities? Check out these Winter Olympics activities!

The Best Winter Writing Activities For Elementary

November 26, 2021 teachersbrain Winter, Writing

Around the holidays, I usually like to try and come up with some really unique holiday or winter writing activities that will be different from the stuff that students have become used to. Adding in a variety of lessons, crafts, and activities never fails to get students excited and engaged in our writing practice.

With many teachers and students still learning virtually this year, I have been thinking about winter writing activities that students can get really engaged with whether they are learning in person or online.

This Trapped In A Snow Globe writing activity has to be my favorite this year!

Students will get to create a photo of them trapped in a snow globe and write about it. It comes with 14 background slides to choose from and 4 slides of movable parts to add. Just choose a background, palace a picture of your student “trapped”, and then add your accessories!

After that, there are 6 slides for students to brainstorm, organize thoughts, and write a story about their snow globe. What I love about this is that it is designed for distance learning so you can easily add gifs in place of photos.

You’ll also get black and white slides for students to digitally or handwrite their stories. You can choose from narrative, persuasive, or opinion writing. You’ll get 4 writing prompts to choose from or 2 pages that are left blank so you can create your own prompt.

There is also a Google Form so you can do a “Favorite Design Contest” with your students!

Step 1. Choose a background

Step 2. Add your photo or gif

Step 3. Add your accessories

Step 4. Write about it!

Afterward, you can create a slideshow with music that includes all of your students’ creations!

Another fun twist to this activity is that students can all trap the teacher! Add your photo to each of their designs and they can write about how you got trapped.

Check out the video here

What are your favorite winter writing activities? Let me know in the comments!