Teaching with Smiles: Writing Camp for Kids!

I LOVE WRITING! I love teaching writing, and I also love writing myself!

I just finished the most amazing last two weeks hosting a Writing Camp for Kids at my home school through the Illinois Writing Project (IWP). If you are unfamiliar with IWP, you should check out our website! I am on the leadership committee, and we do excellent trainings and hold numerous professional development opportunities for many teachers, but also service local kids as well! Hence, why I hosted a Writing Camp for Kids! It was awesome!! These were writers going into 2nd and also going into 3rd grade. I used the Writing Workshop model during this camp, and the kids thrived just as they do in my normal classroom! :)

Boy, did these kids love to write! It was so fun to lead them through this writing journey. After designing their own writing journal covers, we got to writing!! These kids had amazing ideas and amazing ways to tell their stories!

They also looked forward to the many stories I wrote in front of them! These stories were added into my compilation of, The Adventures of Emma! They loved hearing about Mr. Oo Oo Ah Ah, Emma's love for swim class, her amazement for butterflies, and much more! :)

My think-aloud stories not only got the whole class laughing, the kids got to know more about me as a person and a mother, they watched an experienced writer write, and they were sparked with interest to write their own stories!

Another great piece of writing we did was, DID YOU KNOW?? questions! The kids researched animals using a variety of sources and wrote DID YOU KNOW facts! They did an amazing job!

We even had a Writing Celebration the last day of camp so our writers could share their pieces they worked on during the camp! They were so excited to share in the Author's Chair! Parents were thrilled to hear stories, poems about writing and did you know facts!! :)

You can grab the participation certificate I gave the kids at the end of the camp!

You can get this as a freebie at my store!!!

Teaching with Smiles

Here is one of my most favorite books I used during this camp.
Have you seen or read Ralph Tells a Story by Abby Hanlon? You need to!!

Ralph Tells a Story by Abby Hanlon is just adorable! It tells a story of a little boy who just does not know what to write about. Everyone around him is writing about what happens in their lives, but he says nothing ever happens to him!

He tells his friend next to him that he just does NOT know what to write about because nothing funny ever happens to him. That friend laughs and says she writes stories all about Ralph because he is such a goofy kid. He then tells a story to the class about his friend the inchworm! Check out this book!!! It will ease your students' hesitations about writing stories! Also, remind the kiddos that writers write about what they know!!

Have you ever heard of this saying?!?! Works wonders with beginning writers!
I love to remind my writers of this!

You can get this as a freebie at my store!!!

Teaching with Smiles