Journal Writing

In Kindergarten, we work hard on improving our handwriting.  We work not only on using our "owl eye" (more information on that soon), but using phonetic or "inventive" spelling.  This means that we work on stretching our words out with our pretend rubber bands, listening to the sounds we hear and then writing those letters.  Although we work on this during more structured times of the day, Kindergartners have become very excited to work on their own writing pieces during their free time.  Check out some of this great writing below!

Chase wrote "I like to play on the playground."  GREAT job sounding out "playground"!

We have also been working on drawing pictures that are detailed and use the "right" colors.  We also have been talking about how to draw a picture of a person including all body parts.  Brooke did a great job showing us!

"family"

Caden and I worked to stretch out the word "dinosaur".  Using inventive spelling, we wrote "dinosor".  However, Caden realized soon after that we had spelled it incorrectly when he was reading a dinosaur book.  He corrected his journal to the "right" spelling and changed the "o" to "au".  It was a great lesson for all of us to remember to use references around the classroom when writing!

Great job editing your work, Caden!

To keep your excited about writing, try the following list of ideas:

• give your child blank paper to make a book.
• help write the grocery list for you
• use your sight word flashcards to generate sentences using words your child can already read and spell (i.e.  I like ___.  I can go to the ____.  Look at the ___.  I see a ___.)
• draw a picture and label it (i.e. draw a picture of a dog and label the parts:  ears, paws, head, eyes, etc.)

Most importantly, remember that spelling words correctly is not the focus in Kindergarten.  Encourage your child to write the sounds they hear and can identify.  For some children, this may be only the beginning sound.  Other students may be ready to stretch out longer words.  Make it fun and exciting and be prepared to watch your child take off!