Draw Write Now Review and Giveaway!

Have you ever heard of
 Draw Write Now?  
It is a collection of beginning drawing lessons with text to help students practice their handwriting.  Best part is, it was developed by a teacher!!  There are currently eight books in the series that include science, math, social studies, reading, geography, and creative writing and they come in this beautifully illustrated case.

My daughter will be entering Kindergarten this year and she loves to draw, color, and do any type of craft.  She knows how to form all of her letters, but there are times when she confuses the direction of a few.  She is not a fan of writing the same letter over, and over, and over, and over again.  This program doesn't do that!  In addition to providing step by step directions, using simple strokes to draw cute pictures, Draw Write Now allows the child to practice forming their letters while writing simple sentences about the topic at hand! 

Here she is drawing and writing about cows.

The lessons can be modified to meet your needs.  You can use them with large groups, small groups, and even in one-to-one settings.  You can use any type of paper and/or change the text to suit your needs!

Want some great news?

Barker Creek will provide one of you with a copy of their Draw Write Now Boxed Set!  Rafflecopter will randomly choose one lucky reader to win!  Please be sure to leave your email address!
Congratulations Karen!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you Barker Creek for contacting me to review this program!  It is great!  If you haven't visited their site, make sure you pop over to check out all of their teaching resources and supplies!

Help me? and Handwriting

Wow things are crazy, busy right now for me!  How about you?  I know many of you have already wrapped up your school years and are currently enjoying your summer!  Please relax a little for me too!

Right now I am in the midst of finishing up assessments with my students as we enter the last few weeks of school.  I am feeling very overwhelmed with everything that is coming down the road.  

Maybe some of you can help me?

New York State has a new APPR process that will begin for me starting next year.  I will be learning how to write Student Learning Objectives (SLOs), which will be a part of my APPR.  Do any of you out there have experience with the process? Any advice?

I will also be trained to use AIMSweb next week.  This is a brand new assessment system for me and I would also love to hear your thoughts on it.  Do you currently use it?  Love it?  Hate it?

Now for something completely unrelated, 

how many of you use Handwriting Without Tears?  

It is used in my district, however many of my students are still starting their letters from the bottom.  To help remind them where to start with their pencil, I placed stars at the starting place for each letter.  I just updated this little pack to use with my students.  It now includes a capital, lower case, and a mixed version for students to practice writing their letters in alphabetical order.  

Click on the picture below to head to my original post:

Reading and Writing Sight Words

End of the year assessment time is upon us.  So while I complete my assessments with one student from the small groups of kindergarten students I pull, the other students will be practicing the 50 sight words they need to know by the end of the year,. 

I fell in love with the "Popcorn Word Hunt" I saw a couple months ago on Mrs. Morrow's Kindergarten blog.  So just as she did, I filled a little bottle with popcorn kernels and filled them with the sight words printed on the little pieces of popcorn. 

If you click on the picture to the left, you can access the little pieces of popcorn for the bottle and the pages the students will write on. I will print the first two pages front-to-back.  The students will write the first 12 words they see and then read the words to a friend.  (Each piece of popcorn has two lines because my district uses Handwriting Without Tears.) 

Another activity the students will do is very similar, (but not quite as cute).  I created sight word cards with the HWT lines on each word.  I then printed and laminated them and will have the students select six cards.  They will practice writing each word three times and then choose one word to include in a sentence with an illustration.
You can click on the links below for the files:
Sight Word Cards with HWT Lines
Sight Word Writing

Thanks!

Letter Formation

My district has implemented the program Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) for students in prekindergarten through grade 1.  Some of my students still struggle with forming their letters fluently.  To provide some extra practice, I created the following documents to help them form their letters in isolation.  According to HWT, you have to start your letters “at the top” so I placed stars to remind the students where to start their letters. 

(Click on the picture below to open the link to TPT.)