Writing Assessment

I created a Kindergarten rubric because all of the primary ones I found did not really apply to the challenges of teaching writing to Kindergartners. My goal for students who come to K with letter knowledge in place is to reach proficient or advanced in all areas: phonetic knowledge, conventions, and idea. For students who start out with no (or very limited) letter knowledge, I am happy to see them progress into the basic category, especially in relationship to "idea". The scaffold of a basic sentence structure seems to help them to write independently and confidently. These samples show the independent writing of one of last year's students. The date the writing was created is written by me in marker.
This one says "pumpkin".

This page says, "I like to count." You can see how much growth was made in just a couple of months. Conventions like spacing and use of lower case letters are not yet present, but he is well on his way to being a writer.
This is the rubric. I am sorry it is hard to read. If you are interested in a pdf copy, you can email me.
Happy writing!

It's OK to be Different!

One of my favorite art projects of the whole year....


First we read the book It's OK to be Different by Todd Parr. Then at my reading group table each child decides what his or her sentence will say. I dictate the sentences on the back of their papers, and they use their pencils to make a drawing. I encourage them to make the drawing fill up the paper. f they finish the drawing, they use a Sharpie marker to go over all of the lines they drew and erase the pencil marks. If they don't get time to do this, I do it that afternoon. I also type their sentences on the computer. The next day, the students use their watercolor paints to fill the whole page up with color. I encourage them to use non-traditional colors like Todd Parr does in his book. They also write their names into the rectangles and paint those.

Ususally, we make these self portraits during our "All about Me" unit in September. This year I was late, but figured they were worth the effort. I pre-tear the ovals for the faces, but beyond that, the students all tear the pieces. Paper tearing is really good for developing hand muscles used in writing. This page is saved to go into our large art memory books.