Planning for Writer's Workshop

Summertime, summertime...time to relax and play and plan. We're at it this week, working on getting plans set for writing next year. Our district uses the Lucy Calkins writing program, which is cumbersome for kindergarten, to say the least. There's good stuff there, don't get me wrong, but it's hard to siphon out. Those lessons take a long time to read and think through, and can be hard to break down for kinders who don't have any prior experience with writing.

Shannon and I do a lot with goal setting with our kids...individually and as a whole group. We've developed our Goal Setting for Writer's Workshop set to help kids keep in mind what goals they're working towards, and to help us focus on the most important skills for the children to master during the year.

This page can go right in the middle section of each child's writing folder. Keep a small file box of goal sheets handy, and as they are applicable to each child, add them to the writing goal sheet. This is a good way to differentiate for different learning needs...each child can focus on his/her goal when writing!

If you don't want to mess with strips of goals to glue in the folders, you can photocopy the list of goals instead. Put this in the folder, and put star stickers or other marks to show when a child has mastered the goal.

Check out Goal Setting for Young Writers on TpT to see the complete list of goals. If you have goals that you'd like to see added, let us know!