Parents and teachers, don’t you wish you could have a little something up your sleeve to pull out at the last minute? Something both fun for the kids as well as educational? I know I need something ready to pull out on the days I’m not feeling fully functional. Or maybe for use by a substitute teacher (or when it’s Daddy’s day to homeschool). Carolyn has been very busy creating Grade 2 Editable Thematic Writing Through The Year Illustrated Writing Pages and Rubrics.
We’ve once again partnered up with The Wise Owl Factory, our favorite source of educational inspiration, to help share this wonderful resource. This pack is unique as there are many pages that you can edit with your own instructions or vocabulary! How clever is that! Of course, I had to give that a try myself…
It’s so easy to do – in the places where you can made edits, you’ll see light blue highlights. Just click on them and start typing. (It’s probably best to save a master copy of your download first, and then use a duplicate for your edits. Carolyn has also included screen shots and instructions on this at the beginning of the document.) I’m really liking this feature!
For the Word Match I filled in some words for Kallista to match, as well as a little sentence using some sight words. She then pointed to the words and repeated them as fast as she could as I threw out the words at random. Then she had fun making up her own sentences by saying the sight words in different orders.
What else does this 152-page Writing Through The Year pack include?
- Workbook covers in a variety of styles and in both color and black & white versions
- Seasonal writing frames
- Writing rubrics
- Editable word work page
- Generic story elements and summary writing pages
- A-Z blank student word wall
- Preposition and pronoun pages
- World landmarks writing pages
- Editable space writing pages
Next Kallista chose to color a camp theme page with a moose. She made the moose blue and had a whole story to go along with it. I’ll write the story for her and then she can copy it onto her page. She’ll enjoy that! There are 50+ generic and topical writing frames to choose from, as well as additional writing pages. That’ll keep Kallista busy for a while!!
These would also be fantastic for children to write short letters to friends or family. Everyone loves to receive snail mail! It would be a lovely personal touch to receive a letter or story with some coloring in the mailbox.
As soon as Tristan saw the space-themed pages he said, “You have to print those out for me!” And of course, I have to oblige when he’s so enthusiastic to learn. Tristan doesn’t always like to print. He likes his work to be perfect, but with the space writing pages he sat right down and set to work. He concentrated on tidy printing and put his imagination to work. Dressing up like an astronaut helped to set the mood.
Rubrics are new to me, and I’m thinking I will print out several in the different designs. This could help keep the kids on-task if they know they’ll have to take responsibility for their own actions, focus, and time management. Not to mention reminding them to use good penmanship and to do the best job that they can every time.
The kids are already making a wish-list of pages they’d like to work on next – it’s a good thing there are more than enough templates to use for the whole year! They really enjoy word walls, and because I can edit them, this will be a well-used resource for us.
The Landmark writing pages and word wall work will be a nice addition to our geography and multicultural reading. The story elements and summaries are done in such a way that they can be used with beginners or older students as well. There are ones that both my children can use for story comprehension. We haven’t ‘formally’ done this yet, but I think this will be a great way to start.
Although the pack says ‘Grade 2,’ you can see that it can also be adapted for use with a larger range of ages. And you don’t just have to use them for ‘school’ either! I think the writing frames could be used for writing to pen-pals, used as thank you notes for birthday or Christmas gifts. I think we’ll also use them for the kids to practice their letter formations as well to make it more interesting. There are way more ways you could use them, just be creative! That’s the whole point of this Editable Thematic Writing Set: they can be used for just about anything without any prep!
If your children love Space and Star Wars as much as Tristan, then you’ll also be interested in these FREE resources by The Wise Owl Factory:
Patterns Everywhere with a Space Theme is perfect for introducing patterning with young children. They’ll love the Star Wars theme!
Out of This World Writing has work covers, thematic frames and easy sentence prompts, and writing rubrics.
Adventures Writing Frame (scroll down that page to find this resource, letting yourself be distracted by the many other resources available – oh how much time I’ve spent here!) Kallista took out some postcards I’d brought back from my trip to London last year and drew a picture of Big Ben…well, officially she drew the Queen Elizabeth II tower, but she calls it Big Ben. She’s still 4, so I’ll let it pass.
This resource has lots of pages to color and you can turn them into a cute story book. Carolyn’s sense of humour really shines through with this one.
If you like these resources, you’ll love to see some of the other products from The Wise Owl Factory that we’ve tried out:
- St. Patrick’s Day Learning
- Free Valentine’s Activities
- Sudoku with Vertebrates
- Th & Sh Diagraph Fun
- No-Prep Graphing
- Pick-A-Pocket of Prairie Lapbook
- When I Grow Up I Want To Be…posters
- Harry and The Hot Lava Language Arts Printables
You can connect with Carolyn through her Wise Owl Factory website, The Wise Owl Factory Blog, Facebook, her G+ Profile or Pinterest.
This post has been sponsored by The Wise Owl Factory, but all the fun and learning has been ours.
