Several weeks ago we started writers workshop.  We began by reading the book Library Mouse by Daniel Kirk.  In this book a mouse named Sam writes books for the children who visit the library and helps them realize that writing is fun and not so hard if you write about what you know.  Right now most students are telling their stories primarily with pictures.  We also read the book Ish, by Peter Reynolds.  This is about a boy who makes drawings that don't always look exactly like he wants them to, but they are "ish"- flowerish, fishish, birdish etc.  We have discussed the importance of just trying, knowing that the only way to get better at something is to practice.  (Several kindergarteners have been wonderfully generous about telling me that my own drawings, when I model writing, are very "ish"!)

As we keep learning letters and corresponding sounds children will be writing more and more independently and I will be scribing less.  For now I encourage children to elaborate on their thoughts by adding details to their pictures, adding more pages ( we have talked about making sure pages share a common subject) and writing any letters or words they may know.  We have all been writing "I" when we write about our weekends each Monday.  It has been really fun to see how engaged children are during writing and how eager many are to try writing their own words.