Wonderful Writing!

This week my Preppies have been very busy making some awesome progress with their writing.  It's so wonderful to see them connecting the dots between the sounds they have been learning, letter shapes and print conventions and using this new found knowledge to put the stories in their minds on paper. :)

We do lots of oral storytelling using puppets, felt boards, play dough and acting.  This is such an important step for little ones before they begin to attempt writing their ideas down.  Just this week we have been studying days of the week in Maths, so to connect this with our Literacy work we read 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'.  In our group work time the kidlets used stick puppets to retell the little caterpillar's journey.  They had lots of great ideas of what he would be thinking and used this to add dialogue to their story.  I also heard some funny sound effects as the caterpillar wriggled along and chomped his way through the food.  I used a gorgeous felt story set from Keeping Life Creative - Brooke at Teachable Moments blogged about here. I LOVE this set and am so glad I bought it to use with my kidlets.  (There's also a 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear' and 'Polar Bear, Polar Bear' set that are equally divine.)  Go grab it from TpT!

Here's two examples of where my precious Preppies are with their writing this term:

Fox was creeping.

This little man wrote about his favourite part of our shared reading story.  You can see that he had a go at the word 'fox' with the letter 'f', and then used a magic line for the word 'was'.  Magic lines are used when there's a word, or sound, that the children aren't sure about.  It lets them represent each word in their sentence without getting stuck for ages figuring out which letters to write if they are finding it too tricky.  Didn't he do an awesome job sounding out 'creeping'?  So proud of him!

I like to jump in puddles.  I like to make mud pies.  I like to swim in wet puddles.

This week we learnt about the letter 'u'.  We made collage umbrellas and wrote about what we like to do when it is raining - a great topic for the short 'u' sound because words like 'mud', 'puddle' and 'jump' were common choices. :) This sweetie worked hard to write 3 sentences.  She has used the magic line as well, but for single sounds (like 'w' in 'swim') rather than a whole word. 

Another facet to out writing in Prep is the 'Writing Table'.  It can be used for free choice writing practise any time we have play time or for fast finishers.  

The pinboard shows pictures of the Casey Caterpillar handwriting program we use, as well as a 'What can I write?' display with ideas like my name, a story, a list, a letter or Casey shapes.  The basket contains special, pretty paper and the pencil tins hold coloured, sparkly pens, twist-up crayons and markers.  The most popular choice at the Writing Table is a letter... mainly so it can be placed in an envelope - so exciting! :)

We have a public holiday today for ANZAC Day - a chance to stop and remember the sacrifice men and women have made serving Australia in order to keep is safe and free.  I'm off to the beach to take full advantage of living in such a wonderful country!

Lauren