My First Try

I gave the Jeff Anderson technique a try with my kindergartners last week.  I used a mentor sentence from the book, A Chair for My Mother.  I invited them to notice and with few prompts they came up with quite a few things they knew about the sentence.  I was excited to see them get comfortable sharing simple sentence characteristics, especially since that was what I was going for.  Together, the next day, we did the invitation to imitate as a shared writing activity.  As my students begin writing more full sentences and sharing more in their writing, I look forward to doing the invitation to imitate on a more individual basis and celebrating their sentences.  It really amazes me what little 4, 5 and 6 year olds are actually capable of...and how so many people are still learning this fact!