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1st Grade PLAN SKETCH

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Register your units for all the printable and resources that go with the Units of Study.

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These classroom resources provide core curriculum and instruction while guiding your professional growth. Our authors expand upon the ideas introduced in their professional books, model effective instructional strategies, and provide "ready-to-use" resources - including teaching materials and lesson plans - written to support your daily instruction.

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Heinemann | Publisher of professional resources and provider of educational services for teachers

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Heinemann is a publisher of professional resources and a provider of educational services for teachers and educators from kindergarten through college.

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Since I have a bit of time off, I wanted to tackle a project on my list. I'm sure many of you have heard of Demonstration Notebooks. They are a great tool for conferring with students during Reader's and Writer's Workshop! My small groups and individual time is much more efficient as a result.

A great place to get started is:

DIY Literacy by Kate and Magge Roberts.

Below I've posted some examples I've made (the source was indicated when I knew it, but will add if I discover more).

Oftentimes I adapted one to make it my own, which I encourage you to do so you can feel like the examples you use are ones you are familiar with when speaking to your students, but more importantly you will have done the same work they have. This is powerful!

I'll continue to add more via my Instagram highlights: @lauralitlab

The idea of the demonstration notebook as quoted from Kate and Magge is "a collection of interactive lessons that the teacher can use to demonstrate repeatedly with kids, whether individually in conferences or in small groups across the day, unit, or year. " (Roberts & Roberts, 2016, pg. 14) . You can learn more about this resource here.

The pages in your notebook are based on what you see your students needing the most.

They can be repertoire charts (list of strategies needed for a skill)

process charts (to break down a strategy into steps)

or even a micro progression of skills (shows different levels for a particular skill). (Mraz & Martinelli, 2012, 2014).

One place for some great examples I've relied on are:

TCRWP (Teacher's College) Writing and Reading Pathways books. (Roberts & Roberts, 2016, pg. 13)

Jennifer Serravallo's Reading and Writing Strategies books.

Here are some examples I created below.

Notebook Entry #1: "Zooming on a Small Moment"

Genre: Narrative Writing

Purpose: To help them see the progression of moving from a "watermelon" idea to a small moment.

Mentor Text Ideas: Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Roller Coaster, Snowy Day, A Moment in Time, Shortcut, Blackout

Notes: I used this idea quite a bit in 2nd grade, but do have a few students in 3rd that can use the refresher. This is based on an anchor chart I had created (I'm sure with inspiration from many places). I just adapted to include my own example and one from a mentor text Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

How to Use: You could use either in a small group or individual meeting. The sticky notes below are used with the students to have them try out the strategy.

Notebook Entry #2: Starting a New Paragraph

Genre: Narrative

Notes: This example shows the students attempts before you use the new strategy. The colored marker (as explained in DIY Literacy) shows the strategy tips. The bottom section has a place for the students to try it out. This example of where to start a new paragraph is one that I am using this year for third grade (and I'm sure 4th graders could use the review).

To Try: Have them mark the spots for new paragraphs with pencil slashes in the text above. You can erase later! 😉 OR have them do the work in their own writing.

Notebook Entry #3: Show Don't Tell

Genre: Narrative

Mentor Texts: Come on Rain, Knuffle Bunny, The Raft, The Ghost Eye Tree, Lailah's Lunchbox

Notes: This strategy is a common one, but one that students need a little time applying to their writing. There are a ton of great drama games that are perfect for this! Start SMALL with one sentence after they have read a mentor text and practiced with you. Here's a great minilesson on this strategy from The Two Writing Teachers.

Notebook Entry #4: Writing to Change Your World

Genre: Persuasive

Mentor Texts: All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom, One Green Apple, Because of Winn Dixie, The Invisible Boy

You can use a news article written from a child's perspective OR look for topics that affect them and range from: Homework, Recess, Identity to Immigration, Race, Gender, LGBTQ+, Religion, Foster Care, Adoption, Animals, Environment, Poverty, Healthcare, etc. Use a passage from a longer read-aloud that you are working through. My 3rd graders had a lot to say about Because of Winn Dixie and One Green Apple.

Notes: Help students create a heart map (Georgia Heard) based on things they want to see changed in their world. This can give them agency, but also empower them to know that their words have an impact. Have them flesh out flash drafts each day to address these issues to get them in the practice of writing about these topics. Then choose one to take through the writing process.

Just look at the generation coming up and how powerful their words have been in such a short time. *If you haven't some of these speeches from Emma Gonzalez or Naomi Wadler, then STOP now and go watch.

Notice that my notebook isn't "perfect". It's for my students and I to use as we confer together and it works for me. Yours may look different. I enjoy drawing and creating, but I try to reign it in when working on my notebook. 🙂 As long as it works for you! Enjoy creating!

Roberts & Roberts (2016) DIY Literacy, Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann

Martinelli, M. & Mraz, K. (2012) Smarter Charts K-2: Optimizing an Instructional Staple to Create Independent Readers and Writers, Portsmouth, NH, Heinemmann

Martinelli, M. & Mraz, K. (2014) Smarter Charts for Math, Science, and Social Studies: Making Learning Visible in Content Areas,

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Since I have a bit of time off, I wanted to tackle a project on my list. I'm sure many of you have heard of Demonstration Notebooks. They are a great tool for conferring with students during Reader's and Writer's Workshop! My small groups and individual time is much more efficient as a result.

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Thank you all for sharing! Keep sharing your teaching tools using the hashtag #DIYLiteracy on social media (and you can always email us a photo at kateandmaggie2@gmail.com).

This week's problem is from Courtney Al Moreno, Middle School Literacy Coach (on behalf of the Middle School Humanities teachers at the American Embassy School in New Delhi, India). They write:

Problem of the Week - One of the biggest issues we face with our students is getting the kids to use mentor texts independently. Our teachers introduce mentor texts in their mini lessons, they go over them with students while conferring and in small groups, they give students copies of the class mentor texts and time for the kids to gather their own mentor texts...you get the picture: mentor texts are being used and when you ask the kids what the most powerful thing has been in Humanities class, many of them say, "mentor texts."

But it seems like as soon as the teacher isn't there, the students forget to utilize the strategy on their own. Do you have any recommendations about how to empower kids to utilize mentor texts independently?

Teaching Tool of the Week - A Process Chart

You can find a download of the teaching tool here.

Here are links to the professional texts we shout out in the episode - must haves!

Thanks for watching!

-Kate and Maggie

[vimeo 166295341 w=640 h=360] <p><a href="https://vimeo.com/166295341">DIY Literacy Video Series Episode 7</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user50344348">Kate &amp; Maggie Roberts</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

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Thank you all for sharing! Keep sharing your teaching tools using the hashtag #DIYLiteracy on social media (and you can always email us a photo at kateandmaggie2@gmail.com). This week's problem is from Courtney Al Moreno, Middle School Literacy Coach (on behalf of the Middle School Humanities teachers at the American Embassy School in New Delhi, India).

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Hi friends! So this was actually a guest post that my colleague and I wrote for the Teachers College Literacy blog. I just wanted to share it with all of you because I thought it could be especially helpful as you're getting ready to head back to school. I'm already revamping my toolkits for the coming year and can't wait to use them again!

Conferring with readers and writers in ways that are powerful and personal is truly a challenge. It is such a tall order to teach in ways that guide our children to achieve high standards, yet also meet them where they are and provide them with the individualized attention they need right now.

If you're like us, conferring with readers and writers might be the most difficult part of teaching! You never know what to teach, where those notes you took ended up, or where that great mentor text is buried! Conferring seems to come naturally for many teachers, but not for us! We realized we needed some help getting ourselves organized. So when we heard about toolkits, we were excited to create our own. Since then, we've been using our toolkits EVERY SINGLE DAY! They keep us organized and efficient as we confer with our students. Above all, they have made a tremendous difference in the impact of our teaching.

So, what is a toolkit anyway? It's really nothing fancy or extraordinarily different from the tools that you're already using with your students. In fact, a toolkit is really just a collection of tools that you're probably already using in your classroom every day. What makes a toolkit really valuable is that all of your teaching tools are together in one place to help you meet the needs of your students as you confer and work with small groups. When all your tools are in one place, it's easy to bring them along with you as you pull your chair up beside a child.

Okay, so you're probably wondering how you can get your hands on one of these amazing toolkits! The truth is, you're going to have to make it yourself. But the good news is that we can help you get started! Below we've shown some ideas and examples of what we've included in our toolkits. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, but these are the tools that we've found helpful as we confer with the readers and writers in our classrooms. What you include ultimately depends on your preferences and your students' needs. For instance, we use a three ring binder for our toolkits, but you may find another method that works better for you. In any case, we hope these resources will inspire you to get started on creating your own toolkits!

I hope I've gotten you excited to start working on your own reading and writing toolkits! Many of the resources shown above are included for free in my Reading & Writing Toolkits Bundle! Get it HERE or click the image below to get started! See you all soon!

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Hi friends! So this was actually a guest post that my colleague and I wrote for the Teachers College Literacy blog. I just wanted to share it with all of you because I thought it could be especially helpful as you're getting ready to head back to school.

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I am a firm believer in Lucy Calkin's Reading and Writing Workshop and have been since the beginning of my teaching career. I love the independence it fosters in my students and the opportunities it gives me as the teacher to work one-on-one with my students at their level. This year, I had the privilege of being a part of a teacher leader group through the Reading and Writing Project. Throughout the year I was able to travel to different schools in New Jersey and meet with several other teacher leaders and an amazing staff developer from Teacher's College. During each session we would meet to discuss different strategies for running a reading and writing workshop in an elementary school classroom and what worked for us and what we could improve upon. It was a true meeting of the minds.

I'm looking forward to sharing several things that I have learned in this teacher leader group throughout different blog posts. But, I wanted to start with one thing in particular that workshop teachers could create over the summer; the writing workshop teacher toolkit.

Before becoming a member of this group, my conferring time with my students was not used wisely. I would be meeting with a child for a few minutes, realize I wanted to show them an example of something, and have to run around the classroom searching for it. When I would finally find what I was looking for, the window of time with my student had closed. Or often I wouldn't be able to meet with other students I had planned to conference with because I had wasted my time throwing papers around my desk. Please tell me I am not the only one!

I knew I needed to find a more effective system! That's why I was so grateful for this teacher leader group who helped compile what I think is the perfect solution to maximize your conferencing time. I hope you fall in love with this toolkit idea as much as I have!

I wanted to keep all of my materials in one place so I wouldn't have to scramble around to find what I needed while I was conferring with a student. Upon recommendation, I purchased this expandable file folder from Target and it was a great investment. I am able to keep all of my materials in one place and carry it around with me while my students are writing during workshop time. You can find these folders online at Target.com here!

Inside of the file folder, I labeled each of the sections with the name of the unit of study that I work on with my first graders throughout the school year. I put them in order from what unit we do first all the way until the last unit of the school year.

Inside each section, I placed all of my materials that I would want to carry around for conferring during those units of study. In first grade, we start with the Small Moments unit of study so that's the section that I've started to prepare for the beginning of the year.

At the front of each section of my toolkit, I've created brainstorm post-it pages to share with my students. For my Small Moment unit of study, I created four quick post-its showing different small moment examples from my own life. At the beginning of first grade it's difficult for my students to brainstorm ideas on their own, so I loved the idea of creating simple brainstorm pages for them to refer back to. I keep mine in my toolkit and I would like my students to keep theirs in their tool sections of their writing folders. Simple yet effective! My four examples show that small moment stories can happen during every day life, even if some are a little silly! (yes, Goofy really did jump on my dad at Disney World!)

The next item in my teacher toolkit was such an aha moment for me! Our staff developer talked about the idea of keeping anchor chart examples in your teacher toolkit to refer to with your students while you're conferring with them. These can be simple mini versions of anchor charts that you create with your students during mini-lessons or charts that have been taken down already.

These are not things that should be left with students. If you would like to leave your students a "gift" after conferring with them, you can write them a message on a post-it. I like to leave them with little star post-its or call-outs for my "leave behinds" so my students don't forget what we discussed during our conference. But, these mini charts are for my reference only, that way I can reuse them each day.

These mini version are so easy to make! Just take some colorful construction paper, cut them in half, and copy your most used charts onto them. Voila, the easiest reference tools ever!

This next teacher toolkit staple completely blew my mind when I heard it from our staff developer. While conferring with my students, I always like to show examples of editing and revising. But, it was so time consuming to have to rewrite drafts of stories after adding onto it during a conference or mini-lesson.

Instead of continuing to rewrite the same drafts over and over again, my staff developer told us to first write a very basic draft of your story with little detail and basic sentences. Then, wait for it....make several copies of it!

That way you can continue to reuse it without having to rewrite it. Why I never thought of that I'll never know! You can show a beginning first grader writer how to get a basic sentence down on each page that explains what is happening in the picture. If you then want to show them how to add more interesting illustrations or detailed words, you can write on it no problem. You always have extra copies to spare!

Now, in my teacher toolkit you won't just find a basic draft of my small moment story. As shown in the picture above, I have taken my basic story and added a second sentence and a speech bubble to the first page. I've continued to add more detail on the other pages as well. While I still have examples of my basic story, I also keep a second draft to show my students how I might improve upon my own writing moving forward.

The last writing example that I carry with me in my teacher toolkit is my published piece with my most detailed sentences, illustrations, and proof of editing and revising. I want to show my students that all writers go back and revise and this is evident by showing them the process from basic draft to published piece.

In order to remember what revisions I have made from my first draft to my published piece, I write a post-it note (have I mentioned how much I love them yet?!) on the back of my published piece detailing all the changes that I have made to my story. This way, when I'm conferring or conducting a mini-lesson and I want to show my writers what revisions I've made I don't have to rack my brain to remember what I've done. From the picture above you can see that some of the revisions I've made and examples I can use during a conference is to add labels, make more detailed pictures, cross off sentences instead of erasing, and put yourself on all the pages in both words and my drawings. You instantly have several teachable moments.

Another important piece that I carry with me in my teacher toolkit is a marked up copy of a mentor text that I have used previously during a mini-lesson or a read aloud that reflects the type of writing we are teaching. For our Small Moment unit, I like to carry around Kiss Good Night by Amy Hest. It has an adorable story and several examples of features that I want my writers to pick up on. I mark the text up with post-its (yes, post-its again!) so I can easily find examples that I wish to share with my students. Having a picture book right in my toolkit makes sharing examples of our mentor texts and author's craft so easy and right at my fingertips!

The last piece that I keep in my teacher toolkit is a forever freebie in my store! I have used several different strategies to write down my conference notes but I find that the simplest is the best. I use this conference notes template to first record the name of the student that I'm working with. After that, I conduct some research as to what they're working on and where in the writing process they are. Then, I write down my teaching point, what do I want my writer to focus on and take away from our discussion. Finally, I quickly jot down my next steps for my student or what I want them to work on when I meet with them again.

You can find this template in my TpT store for free here!

If you are a teacher who uses the writing workshop, I hope these tips and ideas for a teacher toolkit have been helpful. Summer is the perfect time to start creating and organizing all of your materials, that way you're ready to go once school starts. These are not the only items that can be found in a teacher's writing toolkit but I do find that they're the most essential. What do you keep with you while you're conferring with your students? Do you have a strategy to keep it all together and in one place? I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a great rest of your week!

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Writing Workshop: What's In Your Teacher Toolkit?

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I am a firm believer in Lucy Calkin's Reading and Writing Workshop and have been since the beginning of my teaching career. I love the independence it fosters in my students and the opportunities it gives me as the teacher to work one-on-one with my students at their level.

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TWO WRITING TEACHERS

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Tailoring Our Teaching: No Need to Wing It If You've Got Great Conferring Notes

Lucy Calkins, author of many books on teaching writing, often says that conferring is the heart of writing workshop. I once heard her say to a group of graduate students that she wished we called it "conferring workshop." This way it would be clearer to everybody that it is the conferences that really make the difference with kids, not just the minilessons alone. Conferring is one of the ways we tailor our teaching to each individual student.

If you've ever had the pleasure of having somebody really confer with you about your own writing, then you understand why conferring is so very important. One really great writing conference is enough to live off of as a writer for weeks, months, and sometimes even a lifetime.

Because of that, I work really hard to make sure that I get around to every student at least once a week to hold a one-one conference, or to involve them in a small group lesson. I never want kids to go more than a week without that support. And because of that sometimes I feel like I am in a race-against-the-clock to get to every kid.

Once, in a classroom where I was demonstrating conferring for a group of teachers, one of the teachers said, "Geesh, you really have to run around during writing workshop, don't you?"

"Yup," was my reply. "You've gotta move."

It's true. You do have to move during writing workshop. There are kids out there to meet with, groups to pull, support to give, goals to be discussed and then checked in on, accommodations to be made, mid-workshop interruptions to be had... it can be quite overwhelming if you don't have a game plan.

So, I'll let you in a secret. I always have a game plan. Gone are the days where I headed into each new day of writing workshop, ready to just wing it and hope that I could get to as many kids as possible by the end of the week. Now, I have a system.

Here's how it works.

Step 1: First, I take notes of every one-one conference I have, carefully recording the work I've done to tailor my teaching to each individual student. I've tried many, many... many systems, but the one I always come back to looks like this (click photo to enlarge):

I like to have one sheet per student, and I just flip to that kid's page when I confer with him/her. I usually linger for just a moment at the end of the conference and take my notes while the student gets to work on his/her writing. Above are my notes for Luke, across the narrative unit of study. The goal listed at the top of sheet was based on his on-demand assessment administered at the start of the unit. If you read across my notes, you'll see that most of my work with Luke supports his writing goal. You'll also notice that the conferences tend to follow a thread, a line of thinking, rather than jumping around to totally different strategies from week to week without any follow-up.

Step 2: Next, I have a routine, a system for going through my notes every week. Each week, I go down my class list, one kid at a time, considering each student's individual needs and goals, and for each student I name the one or two things I need to address. For example, in my notes for Luke above, my most recent notes show that I decided that my next step with him would be to teach him how to leave out unimportant details and focus on details that are important. I make my notes on a planning grid like this:

Step 3: As I go down the class list, I add to my planning grid, one student at a time. For each student I focus on what the individual really needs most to grow as a writer. In the end, there are always some kids who have some things in common, and some kids who have their own needs that are different from everyone else's. See here:

Now, at a glance it might appear as if you could just name the groups first, and then add a list of kids to each focus group-not so! If you really want to tailor your teaching, you must consider each individual child first, then plan the group-not the other way around. These groups are completely flexible-meaning I might not pull the same group of kids together next time. When I meet with the kids, I'll make note of each of their individual next steps yet again, and then repeat the cycle of planning at the end of each week.

Step 4: Now that I've listed out students who have similar needs, I plan which day makes sense for each group or individual conference. In general, I try to see the students that need the most support early on in the week. Also, there may be some students who I plan on seeing more than once-I simply make sure to plan those meetings on different days. Lastly, I try to estimate how long each group or conference will probably take so that I can budget my time accordingly. Usually, there is plenty of time left over on any given day for a few other impromptu conferences or small groups.

With my tentative plan in hand, I can head into the upcoming week confident that I can see all of my students at least once, if not twice. Not only that, but my plan is based on my assessment of their individual needs.

Voila! With useful conferring notes, you can base your instruction on individual needs without making yourself crazy. No more winging it!

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Tailoring Our Teaching: No Need to Wing It If You've Got Great Conferring Notes

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Lucy Calkins, author of many books on teaching writing, often says that conferring is the heart of writing workshop. I once heard her say to a group of graduate students that she wished we called it "conferring workshop." This way it would be clearer to everybody that it is the conferences that really make the...

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Magical Writing Notebooks Across the Writing Process - Mary Ehrenworth

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TWO WRITING TEACHERS

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This is the Year I'm Going to Make Writing Toolkits

Renters with homeowner mentalities (a must when living in NYC), Brett and I enjoy filling our Sundays with projects.

Our projects vary, as do the tools Brett needs. Last Sunday, we installed a new hook for a hanging plant that was too close to the window in the living room, attached brackets to the wall of the office for a writing desk, and added a shelf to the linen closet.

For each project, Brett made trips back and forth to get another tool. Sometimes, he stopped, mid-project, to go to Home Depot for something new or a tool he could not find.

You can imagine all of the time wasted and the headaches that ensued after sifting through the toolboxes to find each tool.

Brett knew he needed a better system.

My dad, our organizational guru, sent Brett a tool bag. Most of the time, this bag is a home for the essentials, the most frequented tools. Other times, it gets filled up for special projects. This little bag has made Brett's work a lot easier.

Much like the way Brett tends to our apartment, bringing his tool bag from room to room, we tend to our writers during writing workshop. Each day, we gather or create tools for strategy groups, minilessons, and conferences. I often find myself, like Brett, running back and forth to find, recreate, or make new tools. Brett's tool bag inspired me to make a writing toolkit. A home for writing workshop essentials, saving me time and stress, allowing me to maximize time with writers.

Like any organizational makeover, creating a toolkit might feel daunting. But setting aside a few hours will save countless more on daily preparation. If making a toolkit has been an item on your to-do list, or if your toolkit needs some revamping, let's get started (video tutorials and tool downloads below)!

What Is A Toolkit and Why Should I Have One?

Some people have toolkits specifically for conferring. Others make toolkits solely to house demonstration texts and exemplars, or even as a catalogue of charts. I'm the kind of person who needs everything in one place, so I have started making toolkits for teaching specific genres. This coming school year will be the year I make a toolkit for every genre. Whatever intention you set for your toolkit, it is meant to make your life more efficient and more organized and help you stay for any teachable moment

If You're Thinking, I've Wanted To Make a Toolkit For (insert time), But I Keep Putting it Off

It takes a lot of time to make.

Find a colleague, or better yet, your whole grade team. Toolkits make for a super-productive professional meeting time or a fun summer afternoon project with a buddy.

I am not organized.

Toolkits will be your organizational lifesaver!

This Will Be The Year

Start with the next unit of study you will teach. You can make additional toolkits throughout the year, ideally, one for each genre. After you make the first one, making the rest will be easier, as you can reuse many of the same categories and tools.

How To Make a Toolkit in 5 Steps: Video Tutorial with Narration

How To Make a Toolkit in 5 Steps: Condensed Video Version

Like Writers, Toolkits Grow and Change

In our home, new projects come up that require new tools. Brett's tool collection keeps growing, and with it, his tool bag grows and changes.

If you're making a toolkit in summer, you'll be anticipating the kinds of tools you'll need to support yourself with teaching a group of writers you haven't met yet. If you continue to make a new toolkit prior to teaching each genre, as I do this year, you'll also be anticipating the bumps and hurdles your writers will reach along the way. Continue to grow your toolkit while you are teaching a unit, and revise it after. What tools didn't you use? Could some tools be filed somewhere else? Pro Tip: Keep digital copies or photos in Google Drive folders of items in your toolkit for when things get lost or written on.

A Final Mantra

Tools don't teach. Whether it is a tool for yourself or a tool for writers, the power is not in the tool, rather it is in how it is used. Brett's tools aren't magic. They don't build our projects. Rather, they make the steps easier. They make the projects last. So will the tools in your toolkit.

Using tools will lift the level of your teaching, providing visuals and models for strategies.

Kids use tools as scaffolds and reminders to help teaching stick.

Keeping tools organized for planning and record-keeping will allow you to make more purposeful and responsive teaching decisions.

Having charts and tools for writers on-hand will help allow you to maximize teaching time during independent writing.

Put these tools together, and you've got yourself one powerful toolkit to make for a more efficient, more organized, and more prepared year of writing workshop.

Many thank you's to Gina Neumann and Shanna Schwartz, who taught me everything I know about making toolkits.

Articles, Downloads, and More Goodies

Toolkit Shopping List

Tools for Planning:

Tools for Teaching:

Tools for Gathering and Recording Data:

More on Toolkits:

Giveaway Information:

This giveaway is for a copy of Kids 1st from Day 1: A Teacher's Guide to Today's Classroom (Link to https://www.heinemann.com/products/e09250.aspx ). Thanks to Heinemann (Link to: https://www.heinemann.com ) for donating a copy for one reader. (You must have a U.S. mailing address to win a copy of this book.)

For a chance to win this copy of Kids 1st from Day 1: A Teacher's Guide to Today's Classroom, please leave a comment about this or any blog post in this blog series by Sunday, August 12th at 6:00 p.m. EDT. Melanie Meehan will use a random number generator to pick the winner's commenter number. His/her name will be announced in the ICYMI blog post for this series on Monday, August 13th.

Please leave a valid e-mail address when you post your comment so Melanie can contact you to obtain your mailing address if you win. From there, our contact at Heinemann will ship the book to you. (NOTE: Your e-mail address will not be published online if you leave it in the e-mail field only.)

If you are the winner of the book, Melanie will email you with the subject line of TWO WRITING TEACHERS - KIDS 1ST. Please respond to her e-mail with your mailing address within five days of receipt. A new winner will be chosen if a response isn't received within five days of the giveaway announcement.

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This is the Year I'm Going to Make Writing Toolkits

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Toolkits seem to be the thing that teachers want, yet keep putting off...but... This will be the year! Grab a colleague or be my virtual buddy and follow along with a video tutorial to finally make the toolkit of your organizational dreams.