Editing in Kindergarten

It seems each year the same conversation comes around about writing in kindergarten. Editing....get them editing their writing. Ugh. Anyone else feel my pain?  

Well today the clouds parted, the angels sang, and I figured it out! I had them eating out of the palm of hand and it wasn't planned. Not a lie! I couldn't wait to get home and tell you all about it!

I started just like I always do and told my kiddos what we were going to be learning about during Writer's Workshop and for the very first time used the word "edit". I always ask before I tell....what do you think that means? 

One of my very on top of it kiddos raised his hand and said it meant to "make sure".........hmmmm. He is right. That was a perfect explanation! 

So instead of getting out our writing check list we dove a little deeper into "making sure". I ask them to make a list of what they would need if they were going to the beach. 

We made the following list: 

Excellent beach going items. I can tell my little desert dwellers know a thing or two about going to the beach. Then we imagined packing for the beach. Before you leave you want to MAKE SURE you have everything. We imagined digging through the suitcase (huge hands and arm movements here....we all pretended to throw stuff all around!)

We checked to MAKE SURE we brought the sunscreen...if we didn't bring it we would get burned and ruin our day at the beach. 

We checked to MAKE SURE we had our swimsuit. Seriously, our trip would be ruined without it. 

We checked to MAKE SURE we had food. Swimming makes me hungry! I would be miserable without food at the beach! 

We checked to MAKE SURE we had a towel. A day at the beach without a towel would be silly. 

Right? We need to MAKE SURE we have what we need to have a successful trip to the beach. 

Just like checking to make sure we have what we need in our suit case we can MAKE SURE we have what we need to be successful during writing. We made a quick check list for that....

1. Capitals
2. Punctuation
3. Spaces
4. Mostly lowercase writing

Then we practiced what it would look like to MAKE SURE our writing had everything we needed to be successful. Oh my heavens. It was AMAZING! They were editing like crazy! I had kiddos going back and changing lowercase letters at the beginning into capitals, and fixing those dreaded capital P's in the middle of their sentences. It just really clicked today!

To take editing even further you can read about how I have tried PEER EDITING in my classroom and also download this WRITING FOLDER FREEBIE. 

Phew. I am exhausted from all of the excitement. 
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