Fantastic First Week of School: Teach Your Writers with Free Sentence a Day

Sentence a day is a great getting-to-know-you activity and helps you to set up your writing block easily!

Ah! The fun, fantastic, exhausting first week of school! It’s always filled with SO MUCH! Of course, setting up your classroom procedures and routines are at the top of the list, but you also want to get to know your new little classroom family and you want them to get to know each other! Let me help you do a little of both!

Teach Your Writers: First Week of School Activities

My writing block is always my favorite time of the day, but getting it up and running can be tough. During those first few weeks, everything takes a lot more time, so your time is limited! So, where do you start?

Before the first day of school decide what you want your writing time to look like. Where will the kiddos get their supplies? Where will they keep their supplies? What do they do if they need something else once you have started? Where do they sit? What are the rules about voice levels etc…. Know what you want, that is what you be working on teaching each day of the first week! Here is a blog post I did a few years back about our writing routine if you are looking for other ideas.

I start with supplies. Make sure that the students have what they need for writing time. Be explicit about what you call those materials, and where they get them (in their desk, or a special spot in the classroom). Every day this week practice retrieving those materials, then do a class checklist. You call out what they should have, and the kiddos say “Check!”.

Then, settle your students where you want them to be during your writing block. In my room we all start off at our seats or on the rug for the mini-lesson, then they can take their stuff to find a spot to do their best writing. Decide what you would like for them to do and start practicing the routine on day one!

I like to start with handwriting practice. Your students are probably a bit rusty after their summer off, so I like to practice for just a warm-up. August Sentence a Day has anchor charts, a printable handwriting chart, and printable pages for you to effectively teach your new kiddos how to correctly form the letters! You can practice the different types of letters (I use the handwriting house model), or you can do the entire alphabet!

You could also use your own paper for handwriting. I give my students a handwriting chart to keep in their writing notebook or folder (luckily enough, there is a handwriting chart in the freebie!!!). I love using primary lined paper, but I also love composition books, so why not combine the 2? You can find full-sized ones (they are a bit pricey, but they hold up to a lot of wear and tear (this is an affiliate link. If you purchase through this link I do get a small commission with no cost to you!)

For Sentence a Day activities, these super fun half-size composition notebooks from Oriental Trading Co. are perfect! (I am not affiliated with Oriental Trading Co. ). You can those HERE!

As for pencils, they have to be Ticonderoga! If you are looking for super sturdy pencils that could last you the entire year (with a little TLC), then I recommend these bad boys (another affiliate link):

Teach Your Writers: Getting to Know You Sentence a Day

After we practice our handwriting, we start our year with writing complete sentences! We use the “Sentence Stan” digital anchor chart to talk about complete sentences, then we practice by writing a complete sentence about ourselves! (See the video above for all of the digital anchor charts and slides).

Not only are we practicing writing, but we are also learning more about each other! Win-Win! There are several versions of the printable paper included, but you could use your own paper as well! After we write our sentences we look at the beginning to make sure there is a capital letter. We look at the end to make sure that there is a period. Of course, then we spend some time sharing our writing with our peers! You can do an author’s chair type share, you could have the kiddos share with their partners or their table mates, or you could have a round about with everyone sharing with everyone else!

Included are printable student pages, but also digital student pages if you would like your students to use their devices. You can check out the printable version here:

and the digital version here:

Convinced already that you need this? You can find the full product HERE in my Tpt store!

Looking for more Sentence a Day products (they are REALLY great!!). You can find them ALL HERE!

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