Pre-Writing: Story Building

My big boy, Jake is really into telling stories and making up tales. He does NOT like to attempt to write, though. He has trouble with his fine motor skills and if he cannot do something he does not want to try!

Roaring Springs has these super Color Me Notebooks with pictured covers. You can color the pictures and the inside of the notebook is just lined paper. I saw these and got inspired. I knew that Jacob would love these and want to color right away. My idea was to use the cover as inspiration for writing a story. Jake saw this and jumped right in! He colored the front and named the story The Missing Shark and Turtle.

I convinced Jacob to write his name (getting there) and we started the story. I wrote what Jacob told me to write- exactly. I repeated it as I wrote then read it back to him after we finished that page. This process caused some editing on his part. (You can see those below.) After I finished writing a page he illustrated it.

I love that he was able to self edit his work. He is 4 years old now and really starting to notice if something does not sound correct but at the same time he is doing some "baby talk" probably because of his two year old brother. I was able to discuss these edits with him after he pointed them out.

I was very impressed with his ability to tell a story. He included a beginning, middle and end. Although the story was not highly involved it told a story and included key parts. This shows me that words and language is a strength for Jacob. I get excited to see where this takes him!

We finished the story but obviously there are more pages in the notebook. Jacob wanted to keep story telling but he could see that the story naturally ended. From here he stopped and thought a minute. He then decided that he could keep telling stories of Shark and Turtle. I love that he thought of this and that he wanted to keep story telling with the same characters!

Check out these Color Me Notebooks from Roaring Springs. Not only did they inspire a pre-writing project for me to excite Jacob but they have sparked imagination within him. I am so excited to try the other notebooks that came with this one!

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Play to Write- Week 3

We participating in a Wednesday Play Group called Play to Write over at Cherrios and Lattes . This is week 3- Write/Spell Your Name. We started this week's practice with some name tracing. Cherrios and Lattes provides the printable for some dotted letters. She suggested doing rainbow writing with this sheet. I showed Jacob but he was more interested in writing all the Jacobs. I started by modeling on the first name. Then I held his hand and we did it together. Finally I let him do the last three on his own with only my verbal prompts. He took this very seriously and was very proud of himself! I was surprised at how much he liked doing this activity. He has a long way to go but he did pretty well! One thing I had to repeat was not to go around the o and a more than once. He wanted to go around and around. This is an activity that I think he will want to do again! The next activity was Missing Letter Name Practice. We started by singing a little song I sing fo...

Name Writing Practice

Jacob did a little name writing practice today. He was asked to trace the dotted lines to write letters for his name. This is good practice with spelling as well. I had him say each letter as he wrote the letter. As you can see he is very choppy and not exactly on the dotted lines. His motor skills are not quite sharp enough yet to be able to hold the crayon and he especially loses control as he works on towards the end. We also did a Missing Letter Name Practice. Both of these ideas came from Cherrios and Lattes ' Play to Write, Write to Read. These are good ways to practice names and writing. He gets very angry if he thinks he made a mistake. See the scribbling. I have to reinforce that it is ok to make a mistake and that everyone makes mistakes but we just keep trying. Practice is the only way to get better. When this happens I cannot help but think of my former students that did the very same thing and proceeded to throw fits and give up. I hope to help Jacob ge...

Name Practice

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Structured Play

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