Writer's Workshop Kindergarten Offices! The Best Freebies!

   This is my first year of really trying out Writer's Workshop. Instead of starting Writer's Workshop on day one, I have been building anticipation for it every day and we will finally have our first full Writer's Workshop lesson by the end of this week! My kids are SO excited! They ask every day when they get to start working on their books. I think the anticipation build up will be very helpful in getting them started.

Here are a few of the things we have been doing to get ready: 

    We read The Best Story by Eileen Spinelli in class. If you don't have this - you NEED this! Such a heartwarming story about a girl who learns that the best stories come from the heart. Hopefully this will help in combating those "copy cat" K5ers that just draw and write whatever their neighbor is drawing and writing! 

     To extend this activity, I had my students create a heart map project at home! I used this great FREEBIE from Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations as a template! Just click on the picture to visit her wonderful blog post so that you can grab one for yourself!

       Of course, I sent a letter home with it, as well as an example that I completed myself.

To increase anticipation for writers workshop I had the kids put their offices together. I also didn't want to spend my weekend putting them together! I made this adorable cover for the offices. You can snag it for free by clicking on the image below!

Here is the inside of my students' offices!

On the inside of the folders we put:
- Blend and digraph chart by Make Take Teach - grab it for free here!
- A writing checklist that came from Two Crazy Texas Teachers. They have a great freebie here for creating a student office!
- Student's first and last name
- Student's heart map
- You can also see that we keep our space men from Love, Hugs, and Ladybugs in our writing folder. You can get in on this freebie here.

Thanks to all the amazing teachers out here who have made such excellent resources and shared them all for free!

Also, I finally got  a better shot of my pirate classroom management chart. Thought I would share!