End-of-the-Year Student Favors: Writing with a Purpose

The end-of-the-year ALWAYS sneaks up on me. Every year. I love doing little favors for the students as a small token of my appreciation for a great year. Usually with 2 classes I try to stay within budget. The past few years I've given small plastic beach pails, however I feel apprehensive about simply purchasing a gift for the sake of giving a gift. This year I wanted to find something more meaningful for my students. That's when I decided to do a fun pen pal activity. This way students are able to practice writing over the summer and get mail. Remember how exciting it was receiving mail as a kid, also known as a time before bills? Now it's important that you commit to actually writing back to your students. Other than that, this is a fairly inexpensive end-of-the-year favor. To make it more exciting for the students I am attaching fun pencils for them to use while writing their letters. I used these Branch & Twig pencils.


You can download the poem HERE:

Five For Friday: My 5 Favorite Tips and Tricks for Kindergarten Writing

Sticker Spacers 

Using stickers for spaces is a fun way to encourage making spaces in their writing!

Meatball Spacers

My students LOVE using meatball spaces. They really helped me teach students how to make spaces between words. I make them colorful and cute so the students get excited about using them. 

Having an alphabet chart in students writing folders is extremely helpful for sounding out words. I particularly like this one by Glitter, Glue, & Giggles because each letter has the word spelled out underneath. I often see students using this to write about the objects in the pictures.

Get it FREE here!

Kid Writing Rubrics

This FREE writing paper is available in my TpT shop. It allows students to assess their own writing. 

Writing Craftivities!

I LOVE writing craftivities! They are a fun way to mix art with writing. In my Christmas bundle I included 2 writing prompts with the Christmas present craft. The first, students draw and write about their Elf. In the next, students write differentiate needs and wants through writing, magazine clippings, and drawings. I print mine on colors paper or you can have your students color in a black and white present. 

iCan Write: iPod Writing Paper and Prompt

This week, I introduced the sight word 'I' to my class. For a fun writing prompt we discussed things we can do. Students responded by writing "I can...". They LOVED making their iPods and this has become the paper of choice in my writing center. I printed it on colored paper for extra some pizzaz.

Download iCan Write Writing Paper HERE!

I made an 'iCan Write' bulletin board in my classroom. We change it up with different writing prompts each week. 

As a part of Kid Writing, we use 'meatball spacers' to help  remind students to put spaces in between their words. I like to add glitter and neon colors to about everything so I painted popsicle sticks and glued on sparkle pom poms. Anything to make writing fun for my kinders!

Enjoy! 

Don't Forget to Enter my HALLOWEEN Giveaway!

Subscribe to emails!

(click HERE to subscribe)

Writing Rocks!

Click HERE to download

Setting writing goals for my students can sometimes be challenging. To make this easier, I made a classroom poster with four specific writing goals for each student. Simply print (cardstock recommended), laminate, and hang using ribbon. Attach the pencils with each students' name onto clothespins and place on the specific goal that student is currently focusing on. This will help you keep track of their needs while providing your students with clear visuals describing their specific objectives.

Click HERE to download

I also included writing paper with a checklist for students to review once they are finished with their writing. No more excuses for forgotten periods!