Dear Diary

Diary Books

Hi all!  It's been a while.  I just finished a Lego Education presentation for Rainbow Station.  It went really well.  I wish I could present more.

I was doing a unit on writing letters in Writing Fundamentals, and I remembered that I had some books about diary writing.  I wasn't sure if Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin would hold the students attention - it's a pretty long book.  I was so pleasantly surprised, though, when we read it.  My kindergarten students got the jokes and were entranced by the worm character.  I thought that if the book worked, I would make diaries for all of my kids simply by putting the following cover on a composition book.

Diary Cover Template by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

The funny, marvelous thing is that before I even mentioned my idea to the kids, they started asking "Can we do what the worm's doing?", "Could we write stuff like that?", "Can we have diaries?", and "Can you make us diaries?"  I thought for a second, and said "Well... I suppose, if you'd really like to write in diaries, I could make them for you if you're really good."  This was really one of those moments where I just wanted to shout "Yes!!"  I played it cool, though, and continued the week with Diary of a Spider and Diary of a Fly.  By the time I put 24 covers on composition books, my students were bursting with excitement to write!  I realized that it's important for my assistant and I to have diaries too, and to show the students what we are writing in them.  Here is a sample page from my diary that I showed my students to get them started.

Diary Model by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

I'd love to hear what you're doing for writing!