So, last week I got to work with two first grade teachers and their classes during Writer’s Workshop.  It’s been such a fun experience and is really helping me develop my writing instruction!  Today, I am discussing our First Grade Informational Writing Unit: Week #1.

So far, here’s what I’ve learned:

Since I’m in the middle of Week 2 and still have another week to go, I’m going to give you a little weekly snapshot of our activities after each completed week.  At the completion of the unit, I’ll upload the unit plans for free on TpT if you’re interested in seeing them – they’ll be specific for my unit, but might help you work with your own curriculum.

So, here we go.  In brief…

During First Grade Informational Writing Unit: Week #1, here’s what I’ve learned. I introduced our learning targets and some unit vocabulary that we’ve referenced every day since.  I wanted to make sure they were familiar with the terms I would be using.

Based on our district’s timeline, our first graders should be learning about caring for land, air, and water (science standard), so we incorporated that into our writing by reading about environmental awareness.

The strategy we focused on was note taking.  I made the graphic organizer pictured below and we added ways to care for land, air, and water as we read.

We read books and took notes on our graphic organizer during Days 1 and 2, and I established the intent to make a collaborative class “big book” afterwards.

On Day 3, we reviewed unit vocab and our graphic organizer before splitting into groups to work on our “Big Book Planning Page.”  This is where the kids worked in groups of 3-4 to make a plan/rough draft for what their big book page would consist of (text and illustration).  I gave each group a planning page and their actual Big Book page which was pre-labeled with a heading (i.e. How can we care for land?”) to help them guide their writing/illustration.  I really emphasized sharing ideas and responsibilities – writing, illustrating, coloring, etc.  They kids did a *fantastic* job collaborating and no one was left out!  Yay!

Here’s a sample of the planning page to Big Book page process.  I discouraged them from getting too detailed on the planning page, but this group wanted to color!