Ah, sentence writing. It is one of the biggest milestones for early writers. To those outside the classroom, it might sound simple. But if you have ever taught kindergarten or first grade, you know it is anything but simple. Sentence writing pulls together everything: spaces, capital letters, punctuation, and making sure the sentence actually makes sense.
That is why I created my Sentence Writing Unit, a four-week stand-alone unit designed to give your students the tools, structure, and confidence to become successful sentence writers.
This unit is perfect for kindergarten or first-grade classrooms that need a focused and explicit look at what makes a sentence work. It is designed to follow my Labeling Unit and bridge beautifully into my Narrative Writing Unit, but it can also be used on its own or as a four-week pause in your current writing curriculum.
If you are short on time, no problem. You can easily pick and choose the lessons your students need most.
When you purchase the Sentence Writing Unit, you will get everything ready to go, including four weeks of detailed lesson plans, a pacing calendar with daily teaching points, editable anchor charts, student practice pages and resources, and parent letters explaining the unit and stages of writing.
Throughout the unit, I love using my mentor text Starting a Sentence to model what good sentences look and sound like. It helps students see that writing complete sentences can be both fun and creative. You can use it to kick off your unit or revisit it during mini lessons when students need a reminder of what makes a sentence strong.
To make your teaching life easier, I have created editable digital slides that pair with every lesson. Just project and teach. You can customize the slides to match your classroom routines or specific student needs.
We all know how important parent communication is, especially in the primary grades. That is why I have included editable parent letters explaining the stages of writing, what students will learn in this unit, and the importance of phonetic spelling. These letters make it easy to send home updates that help families understand and support your writing instruction.
Editable rubrics are included so you can easily track student growth and progress. And of course, no unit is complete without a celebration. I have added celebration hats so your students can proudly show off their progress at the end of the unit.
Each lesson is fully scripted and easy to follow. Every day includes a clear teaching point, screenshots of all materials you will need, a mini lesson script, a hands-on activity, and a short student share time. Students will practice a variety of skills like labeling, using alphabet strips to spell new words, unscrambling sentences, and fixing sentences that do not make sense. Lessons are short, engaging, and built around explicit instruction, which makes them perfect for fitting into your busy day.
Your students will learn everything they need to write complete sentences with confidence: using sentence stems and labels, unscrambling and repairing sentences, capital letters and punctuation, finger spacing, naming and telling parts of a sentence, picture prompts, and independent sentence writing.
If your students have not yet mastered labeling or basic illustration skills, start with my Labeling Unit or Illustration Unit first. Those foundational skills set them up for success here. Once they have mastered labeling, this Sentence Writing Unit helps them take the next step by moving from labeling pictures to writing one sentence and then to telling an entire story in the Narrative Writing Unit.
For first-grade teachers, if you have students who still need consistent reminders about spaces, punctuation, or sentence sense, this unit is exactly what they need.
You are about to help your students become confident sentence writers. Grab my Sentence Writing Unit today. If you want to take your writing block even further, pair this unit with my Starting a Sentence mentor text and full Growing Writers Curriculum for a complete, developmentally appropriate approach to early writing. Check out my TPT storefront to find these and other engaging resources your students will love.