Writing Dude is baaaaack...with a FREEBIE!

My favorite way to teach writing skills....I should say, my favorite DUDE, is baaaaack! 

Writing Dude is a series of SmartBoard lessons that help teach writing skills and concepts in a fun, engaging way.  You must have Notebook software on the computer you're using to run these files.  You can click here to download it for free on either a Mac or PC.

So I FINALLY got a chance to have some work time @ Starbucks today 

No coffee involved this time :-)

and was set to work on a new Writing Dude about goal setting when I discovered this lesson was 90% done and I had totally forgotten about it!  I put some finishing touches on it and decided to make it FREE, so go check it out and see what you think.

I am going to work on the goal setting lesson next and will let you know what it's finished.  The inspiration comes from my 1st grade colleague (who is also my daughter's teacher) who has her students set writing goals.  My daughter is very aware of her writing goal and when she's mastered it and is on the next one.  Taking off on that idea, I came up with a self-monitoring way for students to manage their goals, and that'll be part of the lesson :-)

Clever Decorative Trick & Writing Dude DEAL

If you have an area in your classroom where you need to put "stuff" but don't want anyone to see it I have a decorative trick for you!

All you need is a curtain rod and a piece of fabric.

The End Result: a stool and an entire basket of gym shoes is hidden in there!

 Fold the fabric down 1-2" to create a pocket for the curtain rod.

Use fabric glue or a sewing machine to adhere the raw edge to the fabric.
Use pinking shears (sewing scissors with triangle edges) if you don't want to or can't sew the raw edges under so fraying isn't visible.  The criss cross cut of the pinking shears eliminates fraying!

Put the curtain rod through the pocket and then attach it between hard spots and twist until it stays in place. 

The curtain rod used here is very thick and long. 

 There are different lengths and thicknesses of rods to accommodate many different areas where they may be used.

If the area you want to hide is lacking a spot to put the curtain rods, then you can improvise and use mounting hooks like this and rest the curtain rod on the hooks.

I love, figuratively, killing two birds with one stone: you hide "stuff" and decorate at the same time!

Now here's the DEAL:

This is my beloved Writing Dude.  I've developed 15 SmartBoard lessons that teach (and review) K-2 students the key skills and concepts they need to become successful writers.  The theme music and interactivity of each lesson are my student's favorites!

The deal is that you can purchase my MEGA pack (all 15 lessons) for only $8. 

This MEGA pack is up on TPT right now for $12.50 but I've gotten involved with a new company and website for teacher created materials called EdBazaar where I'm offering it for $8 so I can help introduce teachers to this new site.

Click on "Language".

Scroll down to find the Writing Dude MEGA Pack.

I'm very appreciative of EdBazaar's President, Vasumathi Senthil, because I feel like I'm part of the team that is launching this website.  He gave me a one-on-one tutorial via phone on how to become a vendor and use the site to upload teaching materials...how many company Presidents do that I wonder?

So I encourage you to go check out the site www.edbazaar.com!

Writing Dude 2.0

This is my baby, his name is Writing Dude.

I created him as a way to teach writing skills to my first graders using my SmartBoard and all of the fun bells and whistles I'm able to incorporate into my lessons.  At first I created theme music (intro & closing) and was pretty proud of myself.  I got some feedback one day about wishing he could talk and read what is in the speech bubbles in his lessons.  That stuck with me and I've finally worked on it and have been successful!

The software is called Notebook and my personal laptop has the most up-to-date version which has a recordable microphone...problem solved.  BUT my school computer that is connected to my SmartBoard cannot use that version and must use an older version, and for some reason the recordings don't work.  So plan B was to use a voice changing app on my phone.  The one I'm going with right now is

It's a bit time consuming, but I like the results.  You can check out #15 of my Writing Dude series by clicking below.

Even if you don't have a SmartBoard, you can still use these lessons.  All you need is a computer (with the Notebook software installed on it...it's FREE and great!) and an LCD projector.  You can project the lesson and manipulate it from the computer (students just can't use it interactively).  You are also able to export the lesson to a PDF format.

Let me know if you have any questions about Writing Dude or SmartBoards in general because I've become super proficient with them and love it!

Story Writing with Writing Dude

We are going to tackle story writing this week...with the help of Writing Dude!

Since Thanksgiving is just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to write a story about a farmer and a turkey and let the rest be decided by each student:  the beginning/middle/end, setting, characters, problem and solution.  Since we just learned about the writing process we'll go through the whole thing with this story.  

This Writing Dude lesson is FREE, so I'm linking up with Charity over at 

I love creating lessons for the dude with writing attitude and this new lesson has lots of bells and whistles: theme music, closing music, animation and hidden content that magically appears.  The bells and whistles grab and keep student attention but the content is what counts!

If you like Writing Dude, all his lessons (including his MEGA pack) will be on sale Monday-Wednesday at 15% off!

Have a great week everyone!

Writing Dude

He's my favorite dude...with writing attitude:

Over a year ago I decided to turn all of my 'foundational' writing lessons into Smartboard lessons to better engage and motivate my young writers.  I knew I needed a mascot so, who better than a cool talking pencil.  Writing Dude was born! 

If you're intrigued by this dude with writing attitude, take a peek at his very first (free) lesson: Spacing.

I have a MEGA pack, 13 lessons total, over at my TPT store.  Or you can buy them individually to suit your needs.  There is another FREE one in there too :-) And I've created a new lesson and it'll be FREE....so stay tuned and I'll post it here tomorrow!  Speaking of tomorrow, all my Writing Dude lessons will be on sale (15% off) from Monday November 18 to Wednesday November 20!

Writing is in full swing!

We've jumped into the writing pool and the water is just fine!

I revised my student writing journal to incorporate the Common Core focus on the three types of writing: opinion, informative and narrative.  Last week we started by doing an opinion piece about fall.  The sentence stem was either: I like fall because, I love fall because or I don't like fall because.  Then, after reading 2 non-fiction books about leaves during Storytime, we started an informational piece on leaves and will wrap that up today.  Tomorrow we'll start writing a narrative piece about an autumn memory.  

Before we even started writing, Writing Dude visited us and taught us about the 3 Types of Writing.  I also have a poster that I display at our Writing Station to remind us of the types of writing.

  

It's a freebie that I'm sharing over at 

If you'd like to see what my writing journal looks like and what it's all about click below

Freebie Friday

I'm linking up with 

Now that it's summer, I have much more time to work on creating teaching materials.  The first thing I tackled was finishing up my Writing Dude SmartBoard lesson series.  There are 13 lessons that teach important skills and concepts for beginning and progressing writers.  Lesson 10: Proofreading, is my  freebie this week!

Writing Dude

He's the dude with writing attitude:

I love my SmartBoard to pieces! About a year ago I decided to create a little character to teach the writing skills and conventions that are important for beginning and progressing writers.  I like him so much and my students liked him so much, I decided to create more lessons....and voila Writing Dude was born.  I'm a proud mama and am happy to announce I've taken all 13 of his lessons and wrapped them into one neat little package with a big red bow....just kidding, but they are all in 1 file (234 slides, woah!).

      

I'm going to do my first giveaway since I'm SOOOOOO excited about this product!  Click on the link below and sign up to win the entire MEGA Pack:

a Rafflecopter giveaway