Back to School Made Easy for Elementary Teachers

Back to School time can be so stressful for teachers. I personally teach 4th Grade ELAR and as you make know–writing is VERY important in 4th grade (I mean come on, it is important in ALL grades) but in Texas–4th Graders have to take the STAAR Writing Test. This will be my 3rd year teaching 4th Grade ELAR (10th year teaching overall.) Now, that isn’t near retirement or anything but I have definitely learned a few things along the way. I am excited to share with you some things I have learned about writing that will help your students be successful and help you as a teacher not be stressed!

It is so important to have a good curriculum in place for writing. Something you can rely on daily without having to “plan” every day. Six Traits of Writing is full proof. My students have used it for 3 years and have done wonderful on testing, daily writing, and go on to 5th grade as successful writers (even though COVID threw us for a loop.)

I have joined with some amazing educators and we have put together an incredible E-Book (FREE to you) full of FREE resources and great bundles. The free resource I am including is an entire week of Six Traits of Writing. You may be thinking–a week only? It is full of pages that you can do during a 30-45 minute block a day with your students.

The Six Traits of Writing are Ideas, Organization, Sentence Fluency, Word Choice, Voice, and Conventions. I am a STRONG believer in weaving in CONVENTIONS all year long. The students need to work on these every time they write. In the Six Traits of Writing Bundle, you will see Ideas, Organization, Sentence Fluency, Word Choice, and Voice. Conventions are placed in EVERY WEEK.

Also, I believe it is important to have a somewhat predictable pattern for your writing lesson each week. This bundle includes a solid pattern (different activities) each week. It is also aligned to TEKS and CCSS. For example–below you will see the Lesson Plan for Week 1 and then the Instructions for Week 1.

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I hear teachers say all of the time that they hate teaching writing. I fully believe it isn’t that they hate TEACHING writing–but more so planning it. If they really do hate teaching it, it is because the lessons are boring (to the teacher and the student–believe me–I have been there.) A 3rd-grade teacher on my campus this past year used this resource and she said it made her look forward to teaching writing each day (and actually making time for it each day.)

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Teaching is just downright hard sometimes. The same “thing” doesn’t work for every student. We know that. However, when you have multiple different activities in one resource, it does make things a little easier. I hope you will check out my Six Traits of Writing Bundle after you get the FREE download in the EBOOK!

We also have a great GIVEAWAY below! You can enter to get ALL of the featured resources! That is crazy exciting! The giveaway opens at 12:00 AM on 7/30 and will close at 12:00 AM on 8/2. We’ll announce the winner on Tuesday morning, August 2nd.

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