Over the course of the year, our class has been writing large class letters to another first grade classroom from Hamilton. The busy bees at Blue Star Elementary have been our pen pals all year long! Starting a few weeks ago, we began writing personal pen pal letters to one or two students in the busy bee classroom. Last week we received a special response from our pen pals! The first graders were SO excited to read their letters and see who their pen pals were.
Not only were our pen pal letters fun to read, but they also reminded us about the importance of readable writing. A few of the first grade monkey friends said, "I can't read what my pen pal wrote!" After reading the letters, we discussed why we could not read some of the writing. Most students explained that the writing was sloppy, the words were all scrunched together, or the sounds in the word didn't make sense.
We took these noticings and turned them into a perfect learning opportunity! We reviewed our anchor chart of readable writing which says "1. Neat handwriting 2. Finger spaces 3. Slowly stretch words". Since we wanted our pen pals to be able to read our writing, we made sure to apply these important rules to our own writing.
It was exciting to have a practical writing lesson take place in our classroom and it has been neat to see the true growth in each child's writing since we observed the "unreadable" writing of our pen pals. I love watching these first graders learn!
We took these noticings and turned them into a perfect learning opportunity! We reviewed our anchor chart of readable writing which says "1. Neat handwriting 2. Finger spaces 3. Slowly stretch words". Since we wanted our pen pals to be able to read our writing, we made sure to apply these important rules to our own writing.
It was exciting to have a practical writing lesson take place in our classroom and it has been neat to see the true growth in each child's writing since we observed the "unreadable" writing of our pen pals. I love watching these first graders learn!