Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Writer's Workshop Summer Training 2017


I had an amazing experience today giving a training on Writer's Workshop! This has been a long time goal of mine to give trainings on what I love to teach....writing! It gives me a sense of fulfillment, just knowing I can touch the lives of more children through teachers. I also enjoy seeing teachers light up and excited about teaching writing. 
This of course took weeks for me to plan out. When you are teaching other teachers how to implement a new program into their classroom, you really have to have many different components during the training to make it fun! I want them to walk away with fresh new ideas about writing and hope they can implement some of it in their own classrooms next year. Then I know I did my job! 

I made a powerpoint of photos, activities and ideas to share with the teachers... which also helped me stay on track too! 

You have to have visuals to show so the teachers can see the real products you use! I had posters, anchor charts, vocabulary cards, published books, supplies and materials. I even had door prizes! 


I also put all of my mentor texts on display that the teachers could use for their mini-lessons! Some of these books were new to the teachers and they were excited to learn about them! 

During the workshop we had a lot of opportunities to experience the writing process first hand. The teachers each wrote their own story and then read it to a partner. They switched stories and practiced editing each other's paper. They used markers to edit the capitals and periods, and underlined the sentences with different colors. This is exactly what they would train their students to do in the classroom. They had a lot of fun! 
It's also important to give teachers a chance to talk, discuss and reflect on their teaching... it helps get new ideas! I even learned a lot of new ideas today too. It's so fun to hear what works for others as well! 

The best part of the training (in my opinion) was the make and take! Each teacher got to pick an anchor chart from my mini-lessons and make their own! What a wonderful way to start planning for the new school year! 


Everyone got a lot of new ideas today and all walked away with a lot of new information, activities and were extremely happy! If you haven't signed up for summer PD yet and are interested in signing up for August 9th at 12:30... please come and join me! I'd love to see you! Have a wonderful summer! 
Love,
Kara