Whether you are looking for specific prompts or kindergarten writing center ideas, you are going to find a wealth of activities via the internet. But why is it that writing is so hard in kindergarten? It’s because it is one of the slowest activities to show growth. It requires encoding which is a harder skill than decoding.
Kindergarten Writing Center Ideas
Don’t assume your kindergarten writing prompts are going to be enough. Your students need multiple opportunities to write throughout the day. You also need to model, model, and model some more.
Some Ideas
Here are a few kindergarten writing center ideas to keep your students engaged. It is important to allow students the opportunity to write in a variety of ways.
Step #1
Make it fun. Have a kindergarten writing station that has student choice built-in. You can have various writing prompts but also have some other choices. Free-write and sentence stems are a few other helpful kindergarten writing center ideas. You will find that students thrive when there is choice involved.
Step #2
Do shared writing. This is part of your modeling. Your students will not grow if you don’t explicitly teach the thinking process. Show and model how you can take ideas in your head and put them down on paper. This is going to take repeated practice.
Step #3
Give opportunities to write. The more opportunities students have to write, the more they will grow. You can build writing into all subjects. Response journals or morning writing journals are a great way to engage students in writing. Writing crafts are another fun option to get students to engage with writing.
Step #4
Let them choose their topics… or don’t. Here’s the thing. Some students in kindergarten need a little push. Some do better if they get to choose their topic. Sometimes, they need a little support to get their brains moving. It helps to have some listed topics somewhere in the room to get their little brains sparking. You may want an “ I can write about…” poster that students can refer to.
Writing is important
The goal is authentic writing. Copying the teacher’s sentences is considered “handwriting,” and is not truly authentic writing. Be sure you are conferencing with your students about their writing. You aren’t going to get to all your students each day but make it about to see all your students within a week or two. They will truly step up their game when they are getting your personalized attention regarding their writing.
Kindergarten Writing Center
My favorite way to incorporate writing is through a writing station. I like to make it fun by adding markers, colored pencils, etc. I don’t always do this as sometimes they just focus on the fun school supply and forget to write! But these are great “rewards” for students trying their best and staying focused during their writing station time. A little VIP bucket with some special supplies can go a long way.
Not sure where to start with these kindergarten writing center ideas?
I have got you covered with writing prompts for every month. These are quick to set up and get started and your students will love their time at their writing station. You have access to kindergarten opinion writing prompts, how-to prompts, lists, and so much more. Check it out!
