First Grade Writing Unit 1 | 20 Lessons & Printables | Writers Academy

Help your first graders turn “I don’t know what to write” into an idea a reader can understand.

Writers Academy: Writing Detectives, Book One is a four-week first-grade writing unit that takes children from telling and drawing an idea to adding labels, building sentences, revising, and sharing their work.

You get 20 daily lessons in one bookmarked, 261-page PDF. Each week contains five lessons—one per teaching day—with a suggested 32-minute routine that protects time for modeling, guided practice, student writing, conferences, and sharing.

What’s Inside

• Twenty explicit lessons with student-friendly learning targets, timed teaching steps, highlighted teacher language, and modeling guidance.
• Original illustrated Fox and Raccoon mentor read-alouds that give children a shared experience to discuss and write about. The texts are included; no additional mentor-book purchase is needed.
• Classroom teaching visuals to project or print, including examples of pictures, labels, sentence work, and useful details.
• Student pages for drawing, labeling, sentence writing, revising, publishing, and reflection, with generous workspace and primary handwriting guidelines.
• Optional picture-word cues, support, and extensions to help you respond to different writing needs.
• Teacher-created exemplars that show possible responses and suggest a next teaching move.
• Partner practice, picture and word cards, no-cut options, and answer keys for selected activities.
• Assessment tools, including entry and final writing samples, an instructional writing rubric, fillable 28-student class rosters, and an editable individual evidence-and-conference record.
• Additional resources, including portfolio reflection pages, writing detective badges, a celebration certificate, and a family connection page.

Four Weeks of Connected Writing Instruction

Week 1: Tell and Draw

Students choose one idea, rehearse it aloud, focus on a small moment, draw what matters, and retell the picture.

Week 2: Add Useful Labels

Students connect spoken words with print, listen for sounds, place labels clearly, use helpful word tools, and respond to a reader’s question.

Week 3: Build a Sentence

Students say a complete thought, hold a sentence in mind, leave spaces between words, show where a sentence ends, and check that words and pictures match.

Week 4: Improve and Share

Students answer a reader’s question, choose a useful detail, check the page, prepare writing to share, and reflect on growth.

Support the Writers in Front of You

Children can communicate through talk, gestures, drawings, meaningful letters, labels, and sentence attempts as their skills develop. Support and extension suggestions help you choose a manageable next step while keeping the child’s own meaning at the center of the work.

The assessment tools help you notice focused meaning, useful details, intentional print, and review habits. Teacher support and transcription are recorded separately from the child’s independent work.

Save Ink—Project First, Print Selectively

Project the teaching visuals on your SMART Board or classroom display. Print only the student pages and reusable materials you need. Use familiar classroom supplies such as paper, pencils, crayons, and counters.

Download Details

• Grade: First Grade
• Length: Four weeks; 20 daily lessons
• Suggested lesson time: 32 minutes
• Format: One bookmarked, 261-page PDF
• Page size: US Letter, portrait
• Editable features: Fillable teacher assessment fields; lesson text and artwork are fixed.

The page count includes teaching pages, stories, visuals, student templates, examples, and assessment tools. This is a digital download; no physical product will be shipped.

Use Writers Academy to launch first-grade writing instruction or revisit foundational skills in teacher-led small groups. Homeschool families can use the sequence with adult instruction.

Created by Dr. Theresa Nellis, educator and author.