Park Your Writing Here!

Like many fourth grade classrooms, we do a lot of writing.  That writing takes many forms.  Sometimes we take our work through all the steps of the writing process.  Often we do quick writes in the form of reading response and exit slips.  I have seen several ideas for creating a parking lot for the completed writing in the form of a Ticket Out the Door or a Numbered Chart. Both of these ideas use sticky notes.  These are both a great use of sticky notes.

The downside to sticky notes is sometimes they are not that sticky and end up on the floor.  They can also be expensive, and it is very limited amount of space to write.

Then I remembered I had this pocket chart, that would let me accomplish the same thing.  Instead of numbers, I wrote student names on a label for each pocket.  For some responses, I just give students a quarter sheet of notebook paper or an index card.  In this case we did a book review about our read aloud book.  

This book review form is something I had stored away in my files.  The original form was just a word document, and I did some cut and paste to get four forms per sheet.  I ran it on colorful card stock, which is totally unnecessary, but I like color. 

The advantage of a parking lot or chart for posting ideas is that it enables students to share their ideas easily.  My students are eager to post their response.   It also lets me see at a glance who has completed the assignment.  I used the top row to post the question or topic they are responding to.  I also placed additional forms there.  

The kids like the Parking Lot so much, they were trying to fit some other work in there as well. 

If you are interested in the book review form, you can see it here.

Here is the back of the book review form. 

Once again I got the idea from Pinterest.  I have found some great writing ideas on Pinterest.  Here is a link to my Pinterest Writing Board.