tips and ideas! Please share ways, books, printouts or sites that have helped your children write. I'll start with one. Take a stroll and list what you hear. Dd wrote a poem using this, but you can keep it in a list form, write a sentence about each sound or write a story about the "stroll you took on Monday".
I have this book ( it was given to me): http://www.amazon.com/Create-Poem-Writing-Rhymed-Unrhymed/dp/1566440831 It is pretty good, I mix up some of the instructions ( either make it longer or shorter, add more elements to it). I also have a book called Independent Activities for Sixth Graders ( 3rd-4th also) and in the back of the book they have pages with titles like : Oceans, Magazines, Mountains and each month of the year, then it has activitives listed 1-12 , most of them involving writing something about that subject like : read a poem then copy it or make one up yourself, read a book on the topic and list 5-10 facts about the subject you just read about, read about the ocean ( or whatever subject you picked) and then write a description of the ocean for a person who has never seen or heard about an ocean, etc. I use that same format but I have my dd's pick a subject then they have to do 8 or more of the 12 items listed for activities ( due every 2 weeks). Also every other month I have them pick a book to do a report on , we have a list of the types of books there are ( fiction, non-fiction, biography ,etc) and they have to pick one that they haven't done in a while ( so non-fiction can't be back to back). Its usually 2-3 pages long. I like to use this site for short book reports also: http://printablehomeschool.com/bookreport.html Plus I consider writing emails/letters to friends or family , science notebooks , journals , and everyday writing in workbooks or for history reports all forms of a type of writing curriculum. I ,personally, find no need to buy seperate curriculum for it.
I bought Apologia "Jump In A Workbook for Reluctant and Eager Writers" for my 12 year old ds. He wants to do it EVERY DAY! *you don't really need (IMHO) to buy the parent/teacher manual* http://www.highschoolscience.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=34
