Pocketful of Memories ~ Memory Writing Craftivity for K-5

The countdown’s on…How many days do you have left?

We’re trying not to count because we have SO much left to do.

But, being job share partners, we don’t mind our total days left because we can divide by 2. The downside, our paychecks follow the same protocol...

We are really tightening up our writing skills, and adding a little crafty twist to wrap up our school year.

Pocketful of Memories is our K-5 differentiated memory writing craftivity. We create the pockets as a whole class, teach them how to make a memory writing pencil or two, then set all the supplies out in a center or throw them out on tables for *independent* work, and let them go to town!

We created it to give students an opportunity to reflect upon our school year through writing…An area we are really hammering focusing upon in this last push of the year.

With consistent craft and writing directions, they quickly get the hang of it. Selfishly, we need the independent time to squeeze all of our end of year assessments in while they are busy, busy, busy and don’t need a lot of teacher support to work.

There are pocket templates for grades K-5, along with a generic one with no grade level listed.

There are also differentiated memory writing templates for varying grade levels or abilities.

Last year, we found some taking this to a competitive level.

It became a competition to see who could “collect” the most pencils in their pockets. We didn’t discourage the friendly competition because they were writing up a storm. At Open House, we displayed them on the back of one of our doors.

We used our school colors, purple and yellow, for the pocket colors.

It’s all about the little details in life…Right?

The only thing we felt bad about was all our families wanted to crowd around and read them during Open House. We didn’t account for very many people squeezing into this space, so we’ll be moving them to a bigger board this year. Live and learn…