Writing Centre

by Karen
(New South Wales)

I am a kindergarten teacher and wanted to get away from the "traditional" journal writing session to enable my students to write freely, but also have a purpose for their writing.

I set up a "Writing Centre" in my classroom with 2 tables, 4 chairs and 2 sets of shelves.
On one of these shelves I have magna doodles, white boards and chalkboards accompanied with the appropriate tools with which to write on these with.

I provide laminated sheets which have letters (capitals and lower case,numbers,sight words and sentences made up of a combination of sight words).
Students are encouraged to copy from these, trace over them (as they are laminated they can be wiped and reused over and over again.)

On the other shelf I have coloured paper, envelopes, crayons, lead and coloured pencils, a stapler, pencil sharpener, eraser and sticky tape.

On this same shelf I have a post box.
Students are encouraged to go to the Writing Centre in literacy group times or when they may finish a task early and write!!!!!!!

I encourage students to write letters to me and their peers and post them in the post box,they are then delivered to the appropriate people throughout the day.

I check the box at the end of each day and make an effort to reply to each and every letter.
Yes it is time consuming, but we are only in the 7th week of Term 1 and their letter formation, recognition and reading is amazing!!!!