Toy Time in Writer's Workshop
What do Slinkies, Silly Putty, and a toy train have to do with Writer’s Workshop? Everything! Since we know that children (and adults) all learn differently, keying into the visual to pair with our lecturing just makes sense. But even more than that, toys tie into more than just the learning styles of our students — toys make learning fun!
Teri Mitchell and Nancy Herta know all about using toys to teach writing skills. Their books Toying with Writing and Toying with Writing Two are full of fun lessons, each with an accompanying toy trigger to help make students smile and remember the lesson a little better. And all of their lessons are linked to the 6 traits, which makes them even more practical!
One of my favorite toy triggers is using a Slinky to teach sentence length variety. How much fun is that — stretching a Slinky to find out if your sentences are different sizes. Kids love it!
As an instructional coach, I am able to go into classrooms from first to fifth grade to model writing lessons. Slinky sentences are one of my favorites also. I was in a second grade classroom last week, about four weeks after introducing that particular group to Slinky sentences. We were working on making final changes to the letters they were writing. As I was conferencing with one boy, I turned to scan the room and noticed that literally over half the class had their “Slinky hands” up and were measuring their sentences. I loved it! Using toys as a means of teaching writing is certainly powerful. In a different class, I was conferencing with small groups. Because I only had four kids at my table at one time, I used those snap-together math manipulatives to do the “Tower Test,” one block for each word in a sentence, one tower for each sentence in the paragraph. The kids were amazed at how many four and five word sentences they used. That alone encouraged shorter and longer, more detailed sentences.
In addition, in younger classes, the terms, “Sentence Fluency” and “Conventions” are sometimes hard for them to remember. But, as soon as I show the Toobaloo, they immediately remember that, “Every time I write, I have to read it out loud to myself.” Likewise, when they see my toolbox, they may not remember the word “conventions,” but they do remember that it means “Anything I can fix.” I will never teach without toys again!
I gave the ISTEP writing prompt today to my third graders, and I feel so good about their efforts! I attached a photo of our writing props! It's been so cool to hear my kids talk about smooth takeoffs and crash endings with the plane. They're also really great at "Christmas Bow" titles and writing different types of hooks. I wish you could see the purple words that many of them tried to include in their writing responses this year.
I was always a recipe-writing teacher, but now I know that I don't have to do that. I'm looking forward to expecting all 4's (when we receive our ISTEP writing scores back from the state) and anticipating more 5's and 6's than ever before. My kids said that their writings are going to knock the ISTEP Lady off her rocker this year! Thanks for all of the useful tips!
