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The end of the school year came too quickly this year. The Two Writing teachers blog series, however, helped prepare me for the inevitable- summer writing slide. Kidblog.org published this blog post of mine around summer writing.
The gifted program in my district has always recognized the need for summer reading. We carefully choose a list of books and send home a required reading packet. Last year we tweaked the requirements and the kids actually responded that they enjoyed doing the work. The packet was designed around choice and activities that were interesting and motivating.
What about summer writing slide? My students actively write every day of their time with me. Will they keep writing over the summer? Not likely. So I took it upon myself to encourage summer writing.
I found a stack of summer postcards in my endless supplies of teacher stuff. On each card, I placed a label with our kidblog site address, my home address, and my email address, three different ways my students could keep in touch over the summer.
Friday was our last official day together as these last two weeks are full of end of the year activities. I brought out marbleized journals. We start the school year decorating a journal for the year, so why not close the year with decorating a summer writing journal?
Have you started thinking about summer slide? What are your plans? Share your blog posts in the link below.
Reflections on the Teche 
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Margaret,
I love the postcards. I was surprised by the lack of information about “writing slide” although I shouldn’t have been since writing is not YET tested to death. But there is also a lot more information about math summer losses than I was aware of!
So glad that you are addressing reading and writing. It just makes sense to put them together!
I too love the postcards and the notebooks. I think the blog has so much potential to continue their writing lives. It is one way for students to connect. That is an incentive for many!