You've Got Mail

My bloggy block has broken!  Shew...I was worried there for a little bit!

In Writer's Workshop this week we have been working on writing postcards.  On Monday, I read this book to my class: 

I modeled writing a postcard for them by writing to my sister.  On chart paper, I drew a "postcard" showing where to put the address and the place to write the short note.

I discovered this book and I read it to my class on Tuesday:

The family goes to the beach and every page has a postcard that they write to their grandmother telling her about their trip.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the children worked on creating their own postcard in their writer's notebooks.  When they finished, the student and I would have a writing conference and edit the note together.

Since we were learning about writing postcards, I thought it would be neat to do the final copy on a real one.  I bought a bunch of different postcards and each student was able to choose their favorite.  Total excitement.  I was surprised at how enthusiastic they were about their writing!  Here's a picture of one of my kiddos hard at work:

After they had finished their postcards and I had checked them, I told the students that they could keep the cards.  One of my firsties raised her hand and said with the most serious expression, "Forever?"

This was such a fun and cheap writing assignment.  I think it cost me $8 and change for twenty postcards and it was something that they talked about for the rest of the day. 

I am going to go enjoy this beautiful spring-like day!

Happy Saturday!

Dear Mrs. Nunley,

In Writer's Workshop, we have been working on writing forms.  This past week, we've been focusing on letter writing. 

On Monday, I introduced letter writing with this awesome book:

This book is really neat because it has fairy tale characters writing different kinds of letters to each other.  For example, the first letter is an apology note from Goldilocks to the Three Bears!  Each letter is in a page that is made to look like an envelope.  My kiddos thought it was the neatest book!

Throughout the week, we read books with letters and then practiced writing our own. 

One of the books that we read was:

We then pretended that we were our pets (or our favorite animal) and wrote to our owners.  Here is mine (I took a picture, but I left my camera at school):

                                                 March 8

Dear Mrs. Nunley,

I miss you when you are at school.
Can we play fetch this afternoon when
you get home?

Love,
Iron Man


(I know what you are thinking....Iron Man?!  We got Iron Man when my oldest was four and we let him name the puppy.  That crazy name has worked well when telling stories to my firsties.)

My students were so excited about work on writing time.  They had so much fun with the assignment!

Does anyone have any other great books that you use in your classroom that focus on the characters writing letters?

Happy Saturday!