[ncdardp]

I may be accepting a position in a school that uses Lucy Calkins exclusively for reading and writing. Can you please tell me how I should prepare to plan for teaching with Lucy Calkins? I would appreciate any advice to help me in my new environment. Thanks....

[jacque/Wa/K-1]

On my website under documents, there are lessons for Lucy Calkins that I use. Google "Mrs. Verrall's Full Day Kindergarten" (it won't go through if I post it here) and it will come up. I believe these are first in the list of activities if I remember correctly.

[Lorraine2]

She is great - I would try to get my hands on the curriculum (teachers quides) for the summer if you can and for writing get as familiar as you can with the Writing Workshop format of teaching. Her units of study are phenomenal - but it is a lot of reading and prepping the first year. It is not really scripted and not easy to just pick up and do - like some things that are out there. Good luck!

[jacque/Wa/K-1]

Look under documents and then under "Teacher Resources" and you'll see six lessons from Lucy Calkins....these are scripted...

[ncdardp]

Do you have that link for teacher resources?

[ncdardp]

Do you have that link for teacher resources?
Yes, I am trying to prepare. I hear it is a lot.
Thanks so much!

[merci]

I would get a hold of the curricular plans. If you are not yet familiar with reading and writing workshop it will be difficult to really picture how it all works, but I think it is your best best. They will give you an idea of how the year flows. The plans are available as a digital download for $10 each from Heinemann (the publisher). Also, for reading workshop, try reading Growing Readers by Kathy Collins. She works with Lucy Calkins. Her book is written for first grade, but will give you some good background on reading workshop. If there is anyway that you can get a hold of the Units of Study for Primary Writing, that will really give you what you need for writing workshop, but they are expensive. It seems like your school must have them if they are only following this model.

Check out Columbia University's Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project's website. That is Lucy's group. The best thing would have been if you could have gone to their week long workshops in New York City during the summer. They are where you really learn how to do it right.

Also, there are two boards here at proteacher that you could check out. The Rose room is dedicated to units of study--writing. The sunflower room is Debbie Miller, but you can find a lot of great reading workshop information there, you just have to be willing to dig a little and there won't be much that is dedicated to kindergarten.

It may seem overwhelming, but I'm jealous. I'm not sure what your philosophy or experience level is, but I would give almost anything to get my whole school to use reading and writing workshop the Lucy Calkins way.

[jacque/Wa/K-1]

Sorry, in my original post, I mentioned googling "Mrs. Verrall's Full Day Kindergarten"...it will come up, (proteacher won't let me post a link here), though if you take out the spaces, it is: http://teacher . edmonds . wednet . edu / maplewood / jverrall / index . php

Try that and see if it works---it still may not show up correctly.

Once at the website, look for "documents" on the left-hand side, then, teacher resources, then the lessons are the very first things there.

Kidwriting is also a good resouce for Writer's Workshop and still my favorite way to begin the year, then add elements of Lucy Calkins in (many parts are very similar). Kidwriting is written by Eileen Feldgus and Isabell Cardonick.