If groans and grumbles come along with your writing lessons, it may be time to encourage writing in a new way with your students. Take a look at these 25 ways you can foster independent writing in your kindergarten or first-grade classroom.
Encouraging Writing
1. Model Writing
Before you can get your students writing independently they must first know what good writing looks like. Taking the time to model writing is a must in an early elementary classroom. Shared writing is the technique where the teacher acts as the scribe and the students tell the teacher what to write. As you're writing, show students how to begin on the top of the page, work from left to right and when to move to the next line. This is also the time to show students where you add a capital letter, spaces and punctuation.
2. Words & Sentences
Before students can write anything significant on their own, they need to understand the difference between a word and a sentence. Practicing writing letters and words doesn't have to be boring! Give your students a shallow tray of sand or salt and have them write words. How about painting words with watercolors or writing words with chalk on black construction paper? Kids will love these writing activities.
3. Word Walls
Spelling can be intimidating to students. How often do your students ask you “how do I spell this word?” It's perfectly acceptable for new writers to write words the way they sound and they should be encouraged to use phonetic spelling in their daily writing activities. But sometimes, students will get stuck with tricky words and this can slow down their writing. Word walls can help!
Post a word wall with your sight words listed alphabetically for students to reference. In my classroom, we often make themed word walls that the kids can refer to all year. I hang them on the wall and when we run out of room I take a photo and add it to a word wall binder. Students can use these binders to help them with tricky words too!
4. Count Your Words
Do your students know what they want to write but they can't seem to get it down on paper? Encourage early writers to think of their sentence and then count the words. As they are writing, tell them to go back and re-read each time before adding a new word. In this way, they will remember all the words and their writing will make sense. Tell them to count the words when they are done. If they have the correct number of words their sentence is complete!
5. Make Lines On The Paper
If your students still can't seem to write a sentence that makes sense, they may need more help. Have your students tell you what they want to write and then repeat it back to them. As you repeat, make a line on their paper for each word. Point to the lines and say the sentence again, showing them where each word goes. Making lines will often get a reluctant writer going with just a little support. Head over here for more ideas to help new writers.
Make Writing Fun
Writing doesn't have to be boring! There are so many ways to make writing fun. Try adding a few of these ideas to your plans to get kids excited to write!
6. Seasonal Topics
Kids love seasonal topics, especially when it comes to something like Christmas or Halloween! Writing doesn't always have to include long paragraphs or stories. Use holidays to your advantage and have your kids apply to be one of Santa's elves or be an assistant to the Easter Bunny. What if you had your students adopt a peep at Easter or take care of a monster at Halloween? Have them write about its adventures or make it a baby book. These are some of my student's favorite writing activities we do all year!
7. Fun Tools
Give your kids new fun tools to write with! Who says writing always has to be done in pencil? Let kids write with skinny markers, fancy pens with silly toppers, or even gel pens. Give your kids seasonal pencils with cute erasers and have them write about Halloween, Christmas, winter fun or more. There's just something fun about writing your Christmas list with a cool new Christmas pencil!
8. Writing Prompts
Giving students a topic or writing prompt can sometimes help them with writers block. Not every writing activity should begin with a prompt but occasionally this is a great way to encourage writing independence. Some of our favorite writing activities all year begin with a writing prompt.
In October we love to make a list of ingredients for Bone Soup!
A favorite Christmas writing prompt is how to decorate a Christmas tree!
And in February we write our opinion of Valentine chocolates and candy hearts!
9. Comic Strips
Another fun writing technique that will encourage writing in students is making a comic strip! Show students how to have characters write in speech bubbles and then have them create a simple comic strip of their own.
10. Secret Messages
Let your kids write a secret message to a friend! Put all the students names into a bucket and have them each choose a name. Let them write a secret message to this friend using white crayon on white paper. Deliver all the messages and then pass out watercolor paints for students to paint over the message and read to see who it's from!
11. Daily Journals
Daily journals are another great way to encourage writing independence. Students can practice writing a list, labeling a picture, writing a simple story or their opinion of something. Daily journal writing can be a quick and easy way to get kids writing and they will begin to look forward to this if you make these daily journals a part of your routine.
12. King Of Kindergarten or First Grade
What if you were in charge and could make all the rules? Kids love to be the king of kindergarten or first grade with this fun writing activity! Give students a large piece of drawing paper and let them come up with their rules for the classroom. Maybe they will let everyone chew gum or walk around barefoot! They are the king and they get to make all the rules!
13. Write In Different Places
Sitting at your desk working on writing can get boring and mundane. Give kids the opportunity to write in different places. Take them outside to write under a tree or let them sit underneath a table to write. Kids will even enjoy using a clipboard and finding a private place in the classroom to write. Change it up and you'll get kids excited about writing!
14. Writing Center
Every elementary classroom should have a writing center! Give your students lots of cool pencils, pens, markers, and crayons at this center and fill it with paper of every size and color. At the writing center, kids can make a list, greeting cards, menus, write a letter, write a story and more. The writing center will be a favorite place in your classroom with these fun activities.
15. Jokes and Riddles
Would your kids enjoy trying their hand at telling a joke? Have your kids write some knock knock jokes or riddles for a fun writing activity.
16. A Day In The Life
Spend a day photographing your class. Take pictures of them hanging up their coats, walking down the hall, eating lunch, playing on the playground. Take photos of all the major activities that they do each day. Use these photos to create a chart and tell the students that today you'll be working together to write a story about a day in the life of a kindergarten student (or first grade!). This can be a great interactive writing activity or you can shrink the poster down and let your kids write all about their day in independent writing.
17. All About Me
Divide a paper into four sections and have kids write all about themselves. You could give each section a title such as My Family, My Favorite Foods, My Pets and My Best Friends. This is an easy beginning of the year writing activity for kindergarten or first grade kids.
18. Greeting Cards
Another great way to encourage writing independence is by making a card for a friend. Ask parents to send in old greeting cards and cut them to remove the cover. Pass out a card to each child and have them write their own card to a friend on the back . Or you can give each child a piece of paper folded in half and glue the old greeting card to the front. Then then can open it like a card to write their message.
19. Computer Writing
By the end of first grade, students should try some independent writing on the computer. We use these google slides where students can type a story, their opinion, or even write a simple report. First grade students think it's very exciting to be able to type and write on the computer!
20. Make A Menu
Are your students tired of the same old cafeteria food? Or maybe they'd like to have a restaurant of their own? Let them create their own menu of what they'd like to see served in your school cafeteria or their restaurant. Give them a piece of tagboard and let them give it a name, design their menu and prices. Let them cut pictures of magazines to add to their menu. Kids love this activity!
21. Write About A Book
Use a favorite read aloud to spark some creative writing in your classroom. Students can write about the characters, their opinion of the story, a book report or the sequence of events.
In this reading and writing lesson, we read the story The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds and wrote our opinion of the main character.
Here we read the story Leaves and then practiced some procedural writing with the prompt how to rake leaves. We added a cute craft to round out the lesson.
The kids loved this lesson using the book Snowmen At Work. They wrote about the different jobs that snowmen do and then they got to try out some of the jobs! Hop over here to see this cute lesson.
22. Encourage Writing Through Play
Another great way to motivate kids to write is through play. Set up a pizza shop in your classroom and let the students write the menus and take food orders. Why not set up a grocery store where students can label the food, make signs and even do a bit of math with prices! One of my favorite ways to encourage writing through play in my room is to set up a post office. The students write letters to each other, stamp and write the envelopes, and write post cards. They love it and so do I!
23. Become An Author
A super easy way to encourage writing is by giving your kids a blank book and letting them become an author. Take 2 sheets of paper and fold them in half together. Staple to look like a book and let the students write and illustrate their own book. Set up space in your room for an “author's chair”. Designate a day and time where your budding authors can read to the class from this special area.
You can even publish your students writing in a real book with a publishing company! You can have students create a Classbook with Student Treasures by ordering a free kit, having your students write and illustrate on the special pages and then sending it back to the company. They will send you a FREE, deluxe hardcover copy of your classbook for the teacher and option for parents to purchase copies, too!
24. Include A Craft
Children love to be creative and encouraging them to draw about their writing or making a simple craft to go along with their writing will get them excited to write!
In this oviparous animal unit, students researched and wrote all about different animals that hatch from eggs. They loved the cute crafts that went along with this writing activity.
In this writing activity, the kids wrote letters to the tooth fairy and then made an adorable craft. Head over here to see all the cute activities we did with this writing lesson.
25. Create A Writers Toolbox
Finally, if you want to encourage writing independence, create a writers toolbox for each of your students. Include things that will make them excited to get started writing each day. Fancy pens, markers, stickers, a personal picture dictionary, erasers, colorful sticky notes are all things you could include in a writers toolbox.
Try adding a few of these tips to your writing lesson plans this week. I guarantee you'll see the excitement for writing grow in your classroom. Take some pictures and drop me a note at firstieland@gmail.com. I'd love to see your students writing and give you a shout out on my Instagram story!
