classroom · resource · Slice of Life Story Challenge

Classroom Resources for the SOLSC

Stacey Shubitz

If you’re leading a Slice of Life Story Challenge in your classroom in March (or any month for that matter), there are a few things you might want to have. First, you’ll want to track your students’ writing with some kind of record keeping form. When I led the Challenge in my classroom, I used a simple spreadsheet and placed small incentive stickers on the chart every day that a student wrote.   Click here to download and customize an Excel spreadsheet for your class’s challenge.  All you need to do is plug in your students names (the dates are already entered) and it will be ready to use.

In addition, it’s helpful to communicate your expectations about the SOLSC with your students (and with their parents).  Click here to view a post about spreading the word in your school community.  For you convenience, I’ve updated the announcement I created a few years ago so you can include the specifics for your class/grade/school.  Click here to download the Word document that announces the Challenge.

If you lead a morning meeting in your classroom, then consider having students read their slices during share time.  Click here to download a sign-up sheet for morning meeting share time.

Finally, if your class will be slicing online in March, then please read Ruth’s “Nuts and Bolts” post for more information about linking their slices of life blog posts to the Challenge.

Published by Stacey Shubitz

I am a literacy consultant who focuses on writing workshop. I've been working with K-6 teachers and students since 2009. Prior to that, I was a fourth and fifth-grade teacher in New York City and Rhode Island. I'm the author of Craft Moves (Stenhouse Publishers, 2016) and the co-author of Jump Into Writing (Zaner-Bloser, 2021), Welcome to Writing Workshop (Stenhouse Publishers, 2019), and Day By Day (Stenhouse, 2010). I live in Central Pennsylvania with my husband and children. In my free time, I enjoy swimming, doing Pilates, cooking, baking, making ice cream, and reading novels.

6 thoughts on “Classroom Resources for the SOLSC”

  1. Thanks I will show them tomorrow. I hope there are other classes with younger writers.

    I have a a whole lot ideas buzzing around in my head. I love the idea of telling their stories through pictures. I’ve never taught this year group before and I just need to have the confidence to let them write.

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  2. I have no idea what happened to the message that I just typed?? I should have copied and save it in word first. Oh, well…

    My class and I are joining this challenge. I’m going to have a slice of life party after the challenge.

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  3. Everything is as clear as mud about the ins and outs of joining the 31 day challenge. I teach 14 year 2 students in the Land of the long white cloud, Aotearoa, New Zealand. My students are 5-6 years old.

    We are going to join this challenge and I have started today. At this stage I used a sentence starter… In Room 7 we are… the children had to finish it with whatever they were doing at that moment. I started the writing challenge at 9.30 in the morning during handwriting time and each child throughout the day wrote what they were doing at that moment.

    I wanted to type straight into our class blog but the internet in our school is so so slow. So I used ms-word for my children to type their one sentence. And when I got home I copied from ms-word our class solc to our class blog.

    I think I will use a difference starter each day. I just have to figure out how the children will write during the weekend. Maybe some like, On Saturday I went… On Sunday my family and I… Not sure about this part.

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    1. @Christina: Your students are young. Kudos to you for encouraging them to slice!
      A couple of suggestions:
      1) Show them some mentor slices that you and other bloggers (who link their classes tomorrow) write. When they know what a slice can/should look like, it will eliminate the frequency of bed-to-bed writing.
      2) Encourage them tell their stories through pictures too.

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  5. Okay, I’m diving in! I’ve watched this challenge for a couple years now and was afraid of the commitment. But…since you opened it up to classrooms, I’ve got my biggest motivation yet. I hemmed and hawed about it all week and today I hesitantly took the plunge and introduced it to my class to see what the reaction would be. I was thrilled at how excited they all were! I know that excitement will wear off for quite a few of them but it sure it gratifying to see how many of them were initially excited about a WRITING challenge! We are 21 third graders, each with our own Kidblog. I created a wordpress blog to corral all those who participate for the entire month. The scariest part for me is that I told them that if they can do it, I can do it too. Yikes! I’ll look forward to our first link tomorrow! Thanks for this opportunity!

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