Story Writing Template... and some blog love.

Let me tell you.... my kinders can make up some stories. Now when it came to putting their stories onto paper ::crickets:: They could not do it. I blog hunted like crazy to get some ideas on how to better guide them. I stalked everyone's pinterests too. Nothing. Finally, a teacher friend shared a template with me and this is what we came up with....

First, we read some fantasy stories and made an anchor chart. I really like to keep these simple for my little ones because I want them to actually be able to read it and refer to it.

Next, we filled in the web with some of our ideas. They picked a character, name, place, why the character went to the place, what could go wrong. We then filled in the template and TAAA DAAA... a story! ((note: this is my friend's story. I forgot to take a picture of mine.)) We did this 3 times, taking more and more away from the template each time. Oh, and this was the template we started with:

One day, there lived a ___ named ____.  ___ went to ____ to ____. When __ got to _____ the _____ was/were too ______. So ______ called _____ for help. 

 I walked them through creating their own web using this paper. Next week, we will begin writing. Wish us luck! I hope this can help some other struggling teacher out too. ;)

click the picture for your own copy

Oh and I have received some blog awards lately and haven't had a chance to post them...

Mrs. Johnson at Little Miss Teacher and Mrs. S at Stapler's Strategies gave me the Top 10 Award! So glad they did, so that I could find their super cute blogs and become a follower! 

Mrs. S, Deb at Simply the Classroom, and Emily at Circus of Learning also gave me this pretty award...

Ms. Au at 2nd Grade Rocks! gave me both of the awards as well! :)

I am off to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and will return the award giving favor later.