When I was thinking about the leadership project, I originally thought animal club was a great idea. Then I found out I was pregnant and a few weeks later quarantine happened… which would mean that I would have maybe September and October of next year to organize an animal club, and that is assuming that I would be feeling healthy and up to extra work. As of the first trimester, I feel sick all the time.
Then I was thinking I could publish a children’s book. Sadly, due to copyright issues my favorite story idea would not be able to happen. Publishing a book for children is not something I want to force when I don’t feel passionate about whatever I am creating, so I put that on hold as well. It will happen at some point, but not with a confined due date.
Last, I was thinking about what my students needs are, and what I would like to do for them. I realized I already had a small project started, and I can just build off that idea. Since I am going to be out for several months next year, I can create literacy centers for my students.
When I worked at a private school, preschoolers had exposure to play based literacy centers, where they didn’t even realize they were learning as much as they were. Through a broken fax machine, sparkly pens, paper, stickers and a pocket chart full of student names, children cheerfully sat down and practiced writing every day. Three and four-year-olds learned to spell one another’s names, and many enjoyed writing cards and creating their own books. There was so much joyful learning that came from that one little center, and it seems too simple to not create similar centers for children at my current school.
Sadly, when inquiring about writing centers within classrooms, teachers often complain about lack of space, or they become uncomfortable and end the conversation. It’s hard to tell if they are insecure about their lack of a center, overwhelmed at the thought of creating one, or uncomfortable with allowing a new outsider to create a center for them. However, when I offered to share my “extra” resources with teachers who’s writing centers could use a little TLC, they quickly accepted, and used the resources all year. When another teacher saw the independent writing center I created for her student, she asked if I could send the document to her so she could replicate it for the rest of her students. This helped me realize, that if I create products, teachers will cheerfully use them.
I went on Donors Choose and found several curriculum-based items that I thought would be helpful for children, and I funded a “Literacy Centers Project”. The idea is to create play-based literacy centers that help support children in understanding their curriculum, and give them an outlet to joyfully write.
Students have gained comforting stuffed animals, sparkly gel pens, reusable sticker pads, and story journals, brand new picture filled books at beginner reading levels that coincide with their curriculum, pocket charts full of helpful words, poster paper, and I will create trifold presentations that can be updated during different times of the year.
Themes for the letter writing center can include:
- What you did over summer break
- Fall/Halloween Stories
- Thanksgiving
- Christmas/Holiday
- Valentine’s Day
- Earth Day
- Spring time
I plan to create a letter writing center for students, where they can write letters to friends and family and fill in cards to send to loved ones. I have found children become very excited to write letters to people, so I am hoping if there is an engaging literacy center, children can enjoy writing, drawing, and sending messages to their family members around the world.
My plan is to give students lots of fun paper, pens, pencils, stickers etc. The center will include common words and sentence stems so that children can have confidence in their writing as they begin their writing process by copying words directly from the board. Depending on the theme, certain words and images will change so that the center remains interesting for everyone. There will also be checklists for students to complete in order to “self-check” their own work. These lists might include reminders to: put spaces between words, periods at the end of sentences, capitals in the beginning of sentences, etc. Once a child has self-checked their work, they can have a teacher check their card. The next step would be teaching students how to fill in addresses on envelopes. I have realized many children, even third and fourth graders, don’t know their home address. Hopefully, by writing cards and letters, students will also learn their own home address when they need to write it as their return address.
Once a letter and envelope is ready to go, a teacher will give a student a stamp and they can send their card to their loved one. There will also be a map included in the writing center so that children can mark the different places around the world that they are sending letters. Hopefully this will bring comfort to children who are from other countries if they learn that other classmates have family members living in the same country they are from.
I am hoping that this center will help students find a love for writing, and at the same time boost their understanding of world geography, and knowledge of where they live.
I know many teachers already have days packed full of lessons and they won’t be able to cater to a writing program, but I am hoping that if students view this center as enjoyable, many kids will cheerfully choose to write cards and letters during their months of indoor recess that happen each winter.
ECLInstitute - HVWP 2019-2020 