First Grade Morning Work Journal Prompts - Editable | February

This fun and interactive resource will help your students review skills they need through writing. Helping to make daily practice engaging and effective for students and teachers; these editable February Morning Work Journal Prompts take spiral review to a new level by allowing for differentiation and customization for any teacher. With 20 editable writing, SEL and math prompts, this is the perfect way to meet the needs of all your students this January. Your students will love the fun Valentine and winter themed math and writing questions as well as the thought-provoking SEL questions to respond to.

WHAT'S INCLUDED:

Included in this resource are 20 February prompt cutouts to help your students start their day, and the best part – the prompts are completely EDITABLE! There are two entry pages with space for 10 prompts each. You can date or number your prompts to make them super easy to find in the document.

The cutouts are the perfect size for students’ composition notebooks/journals. Each prompt cutout measures 6.5 inches long by .92 inch tall. Students just glue the prompt at the top of their journal page and there’s still plenty of room for students to write and draw their response.

Each prompt auto-generates into 2 cutout pages with 12 cutouts on each page; perfect for a class set of 24. For larger class sizes (I hope this isn’t you!), just print an extra page. In addition to the 2 cutout pages per prompt, they also come with 2 different font size print options so you can choose which to print based on how long your prompt is. I personally like the larger font for my shorter prompts as it fills the space more, and the smaller font is great because it automatically sizes down to fit long prompts.

WHY I SWITCHED TO MORNING WORK JOURNALS!

This year in first grade, we needed something different. Morning work tubs didn’t work with this group or schedule, and it was always so hard and time consuming to ‘find’ morning work for each morning that fit all my students’ needs. On top of all that, I was going to be out for Maternity Leave and needed something that would be easy for my sub to implement, while still holding value in my students’ learning. This is when I decided to do morning work journals with a prompt each day. Starting with students just copying a prompt from a slide and then answering it in their journals. This worked alright, but our needs changed. Students were ready for more complex math and writing prompts that were longer. It didn’t make sense to continue having my students copy the prompt and I wanted both myself and the students to remember what their prompts were each day when looking back in their journals. We needed prompt cutouts. This resource quickly became a game-changer in the morning work department and I couldn’t wait to share it with other teachers. These are the prompts that I will be using with my first grade students after winter break. The predictable routine is perfect for my students and the flexibility and changing daily prompts keep review interesting, fun, and effective!  

Here are some of the many reasons why I love morning work journal prompts:

• Easy to implement
• Students gain a sense of ownership over their journals and learning
• Takes the guess-work out of morning work
• Differentiation
• Flexibility
• Effective
• Meaningful practice
• Incorporate more writing, SEL, and math throughout the day
• Combine math and writing
• Students look forward to it
• Increased engagement
• Increased independence with writing
• Increase in creative thinking

IDEAS FOR USE:

This resource was made with my first grade students in mind, but could work for other students as intervention or enrichment. Since the prompts are editable, you can modify them to best suit your class needs.

I like to have the cutouts already cut and sorted for each morning. You can place the cutouts in a basket, so students just come in and grab one each morning and get started. To display the morning work prompt, you can make a slide with the prompt on it to project or you can have your own cutout and journal under a document camera to model.

I love to differentiate morning work for my kids as well. You can differentiate by having different questions for each student or level of students. These prompts can also be used at any time during the day. So, if they work better in your stations, this would be a great independent workstation!

You will find that I do an assortment of writing and SEL based questions and math questions. For math questions, I like to use my students’ names in the story problems. Feel free to change the names to your students’ names or change the prompts to best suit your classroom needs!

You can use this resource for:

• Morning Work
• Literacy Centers
• Early Finisher Activities
• Intervention/Enrichment
• Handwriting
• Homework
• Word Work/Writing Center
• Math Station / Writing About Math Station

**Please note that you will need the latest Adobe Reader to be able to open and edit this resource. When printing, choose the option to ‘fit to page’ as the prompts utilize the whole page.

Thank you for considering adding this resource to your teacher toolkit.

With hustle and heart,

Chrissy

Grade Levels: K-3rd

Mostly Used With: 1st Grade

Total Pages: 89 pages

Answer Key: N/A

CCSS Standards Aligned:

1.OA.A.1

Use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.

1.OA.A.2

Solve word problems that call for addition of three whole numbers whose sum is less than or equal to 20, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.

W.1.1

Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.

W.1.2

Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.

W.1.3

Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.

W.1.8

With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

CCRA.W.1

Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

CCRA.W.2

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

CCRA.W.3

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

CCRA.W.4

Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

CCRA.W.10

Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.