Writer's Workshop: Small Moments & Google Docs

Retrieved from Can't Stop Smiling

Across our county this month, teachers and students are launching writer's workshop Lucy Calkins style. The first unit for writing is about small moments. The goal is to help students grow as writers as they take everyday events from their lives and turn them into stories. Stories that communicate through pictures and lots and lots of writing. 

By the time they have finished, they want to publish their work so others can celebrate the writing with them. Since we are a GAFE district, Google Docs often becomes the first place students learn to publish their writing online for the world to read. Elementary teachers are somewhat hesitant to start the typing process with our young learners because their lack of typing skills makes the process long and laborious. 

Google has been working hard at releasing some updates and they are releasing several that are perfect for the educational setting. I mentioned templates in this post and linked to several other updates.

One of the linked updates is about Voice Typing. Yes, dear teacher friends, your students can read their story and Google will take the dictation and type it for them!

You can find this wonderful gem under the Tools menu. Check out the video below to see just how easy this is.