Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Guest Blogger- Sara with Friday Journals and a FREEBIE!

Thanks Sara for being here today while I'm on my vacation!  I love this idea and know you all will too... what a great way to support learning at home and foster communication between home and school!  I'll stop rambling so you can read this awesome post and then snag your freebie at the end!

Hi everyone!  I'm Sara from Smiling In Second Grade and I am honored to be filling in at Bunting, Books and Bainbridge today!  I have been a fan of Christina's since long before I started blogging.  Thank you Christina for inviting me to hang out!


I stopped by to share one of my favorite classroom activities.  On Fridays, during Writer's Workshop, my students write in their Friday Journals. We start by brainstorming what we learned during the week. The students then write a letter to their parents (or other family member) explaining what we did in class that week. The students practice writing letters and also recall what we learned.


The students then take them home over the weekend and I ask that the parents write a letter in response to their child. It's a great remedy for the question, "what did you learn in school today?" I also love seeing the interaction between the child and parent.





At the beginning of the year, the students start off by writing 3 sentences and asking one question. By the end of the year, they are writing full pages, front and back! Go second graders! :)




The students paste a letter from me on the first page, which explains the project to parents and then gives them examples of what to write. 





If the students bring their Friday Journal back on Monday with a parent response, they receive a sticker on the cover of their journal. By the end of the year, the cover looks really cool and the parents have a special keepsake!

I spruced up the parent letter a bit for you and you can download it for free here.


Thanks for letting me spend some time with you and enjoy!








11 comments:

  1. LOVE this idea!! Will have to try it next year!

    Angela :)
    Hippo Hooray for Second Grade!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I LOVE This idea and would love to try it next year! I am sorry to be picky, but there is a typo in the letter. On line 4 it should say think instead of thing. Otherwise the whole idea is great!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a great idea! I LOVE it...thank you so much for sharing!!!

    Halle
    Across the Hall in 2nd Grade

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is such a fabulous idea! Thanks for sharing! I want to implement this with my 3rd graders next year.

    Krista
    Stellar-Students

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is one of those ideas that is so simple, yet so effective. Love, love it so much I want to start it now...with only 12 more weeks left of school! Thanks so much for sharing the idea and the letter template!
    Meg

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love this idea! I am going to keep it in mind for next year :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Too cute, Sara! Awesome idea! I'm already thinking of how I could do something like this in First grade. It would work so well for us on Fridays, too as we tend to have a bunch of tests/assessments on Fridays and this could really be useful during our "chill time." Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  8. @Ashley, I am thinking the same thing! Maybe we could start the year with fill in the blank sentence starter. Hmmm... I love this! Thanks, Sara!
    ~Danielle
    My First Love

    ReplyDelete
  9. This is such a simple, yet powerful idea! Thank you so much for sharing. All our classrooms will be better because you shared.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...