My First "Currently" and Whole Class Journals

I've never done a linky party of any kind, but I've wanted to. (If you don't know what that is, I am not really sure I'm qualified to describe it for you as I'm just trying this myself for the first time - ha!)

I saw Jen's August "Currently" and decided I just needed to figure it out. I went over to Farley's blog, Oh Boy, Fourth Grade, to get the template for it and - voila! My first Currently! Yay me!

Head on over to Farley's blog to check out others who linked up for the August Currently!

I also made another little goodie I found from Pinterest. I've seen a lot of these floating around, and I'm not sure whose idea this was originally. This is what I pinned.

Basically, we will have 8 whole class journals for the students to write in. I will select 8 students each week to write in one of the journals. The next week, 8 different children will be selected to write, and so on. By the time we're finished, each journal should have about 25 different entries written in them. Students will be able to read what their classmates have written as well. I think it'll be great fun and a great experience for everyone!

I didn't type up all the instructions like Emily did, mainly because I have a ton of these 2"x4" labels and it wouldn't fit. Here are the 8 topics I chose for the kids to write about:

• Your Weekend
• Your Favorite Hobby
• Your Favorite Sport
• A Family Vacation
• A Strange Dream
• Your Greatest Wish
• Your Pet(s)
• Your Family

I know that some students might not have pets, may never have been on a vacation, may not remember their dreams, may not have a favorite sport, etc. Students will definitely be allowed to use these for creative writing if they cannot write a personal narrative for that topic. For example, if a student is writing in the Favorite Sport journal but doesn't like sports, I would encourage him or her to create their own sport or game and write about what it would be like. For pets, what would their dream pet be? For vacations, what would their dream vacations be?

These will not be graded. I will go over them and look for glaring errors. I want this to be more of a shared writing experience between the students. I can't wait to use these in my classroom!

So that's it for now! I'm preparing a classroom tour post for you soon! School is about to start. Are you ready?