All writing begins with ideas, but young students often need visual cues to help them organize their thoughts before beginning to write. For this reason, many elementary teachers use graphic organizers or thinking maps to help students visualize patterns and organize their ideas within the different genres of writing. Graphic organizers such as thinking maps help students plan their writing and aid in organization. Research has shown that all students benefit from using graphic organizers, although some are better suited to particular writing tasks than others. As students become familiar with and comfortable using these organizers, they can easily be adapted for scientific writing. A summary of how these thinking maps are aligned to "Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy" and "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS) is presented. In this article, the authors share examples of how different thinking maps have been used for writing in science from kindergarten to second grade. They also discuss connections to NGSS core ideas and crosscutting concepts.