See legend at bottom for explanation of age codes
The Wrong Way to Teach Grammar
This article in the Atlantic points out why content must come before form if we are to create good writers. While it is relevant to all ages, it is particularly important for high school composition.
The Exquisite Prompt
A series of monthly writing challenges designed as a classroom activity for kids in grades K-12. Teachers can engage their students by selecting just one of the monthly challenges or try a new challenge every month.
Easy Essay
An automated information organization program helpful for people who have a hard time organizing their thoughts. Through an interactive form, the user inputs a basic 3 point outline with a thesis statement. The outline form guides you through the addition of facts to support your points then gives you a split screen with the generated outline on one side and a text box into which you type your essay on the other side. Students who have trouble coming up with a consistent and logical outline will find it helpful.
Merriam-Webster Online
Not just a dictionary source. Also offers Free games on line such as Daily Crossword, PuzzleWord Game, Daily Buzzword For Kids, Word of the Day and a Daily Podcast
10 Big Myths about copyright explained
This is a particularly muddy issue with the ease of copying and pasting (or forwarding) online, whether in email or to a website. Since many people have varying ideas about what copyright does and doesn't protect, reminders about this topic are useful and relevant once in awhile. I particularly like the examples and explanations found on this site. Enjoy, and remember: violating copyright breaks the food chain!
How to Study
We all know that studying is a skill to be learned, not a talent one is born with. From Taking Notes in Class to how to succeed on an Essay Test, this site gives useful and practical ways to succeed. When you click a link, scroll down to see the results - the page will not appear to change when clicking links since what changes is out of site below. The site is provided by two education professors who developed more detailed study skills programs that can be purchased from the site.
Read Write Think Student Materials
The Student Materials are part of a larger project from NCTE, Marco Polo, and and International Reading Association. The larger site includes many lesson plans, easily sorted by topic and grade. The Student Materials include online tools that teach students concepts like acrostics, bio-cubes (for biographies), comic creators, drama maps, essay maps, and much more. Kids who don't like the physical aspect of handwriting will enjoy using the tools on Read Write Think to show off their writing skills.
The Misadventures of Foot In Mouth Man
"A loveable but bumbling communicator, FIMM stumbles his way through life!... FIMM Fans have watched him through many episodes sticking his foot in his mouth so often he has Athlete's Tongue!"
Young Naturalist Awards
The theme for the Young Naturalist Awards is the same each year: Scientific Discovery Begins with Expeditions! "The Young Naturalist Awards program invites you to plan and conduct your own scientific expedition, one that will provide original data, questions, and observations on a topic in the natural sciences."
Daily Writing Tip
From Brave Writer
PIZZAZ Writing Assignments
Created for ESL teachers, these assignments are also easily adapted for use with beginning writers.
- Y—Young (PreK-3rd)
- M—Middle (4th-6th)
- O—Older (7th-12th)
- T—Teacher Resources
Writing Blog Posts
7 High School Writing Ideas for Homeschooling Teens
If you have a struggling or uninspired writer, I've compiled a list of writing "projects" you can try with your teen. Be open to experimenting, outsourcing, and letting them take the wheel. But maybe don't call them writing projects because it might make your teen run in the opposite direction. As usual, serving snacks whilst brainstorming and writing is always recommended.
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Free Monthly Writing Prompts
TheHomeSchoolMom is offering a set of printable prompts for each month of the academic year with ideas to start kids off if they need it.
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Creative Writing: Writing a Day in the Life Story
Journaling is a great writing activity because it’s very adaptable. Journal prompts are only limited by your imagination. A great extension of journaling is writing a day in the life story. Homeschooling families make excellent and interesting subjects--there’s always something going on...
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Creative Writing Using Story Enrichment Paper Chains
Children's minds are bubbling over with stories -- funny stories, anecdotes about life going on around them, recaps of play dates with friends, and tall tales that grow taller by the minute. As a long-time homeschool mom, it was my job to tap into those bubbles of creativity and help my children put words to those amazing stories. That's not as easy as it sounds.
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Scribes: Narration & Homeschooling
Your child can't hold a pencil very well? Your child thinks faster than she can write? Your child's handwriting is illegible? Your child can't compose in writing even though he can tell you a great story?
Your child might benefit from having a scribe.
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Instead of Curriculum: Bring Me Bad Writing
"Bring me bad writing," I told my two homeschool co-op classes of middle school and elementary age writers. "Incorrect writing, wrong apostrophes, sentence fragments, typos, passive voice. Horrible stuff. Bring it."
The next week, they marched in with an array of bad writing they'd found on websites, on convenience store signs, on gas pumps, in a letter from a college administrator, in text books, in novels, and in their own journals.
They had snapped photos, hand copied passages, bookmarked pages, and printed screen shots.
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English Composition for High School
Using process-based writing resources, students can master writing effective English compositions. Resources include parent info and student assignments.
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The Little Writing Tool With Big Impact
Sometimes in homeschooling, it just takes the right tool to make the biggest impact. Well, I’ve found one that has completely transformed writing for our family.
Writing is often a skill that challenges many students, because even if they have a strong command of grammar, it can be challenging to put words together in a way that is persuasive, interesting, and impactful. Even worse – many students struggle to summarize from sources when they are doing research, without plagiarizing the original source. Simply understanding source documents can also be daunting for many children, when they are introduced to research writing.
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Instead of Curriculum: D'Aulaires' Mythology Books
Some of my favorite children’s books are also wonderful learning resources you can use instead of curriculum. Among these are the oversize children’s classics about mythology by the d’Aulaires. The D'Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths and the D'Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths delighted all my kids when they were pre-readers through their late elementary years, and I found that the understanding of mythology they learned from these books persisted through their middle school and high school years, when they needed to spot and comprehend literary allusions to mythology.
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Reading, Writing, and Rhythm
A new year has arrived for our homeschool co-op, and I'm delighted to have a new bunch of kids to write with. Last year, I led ongoing weekly writing workshops for our high schoolers and middle schoolers. This quarter, I get to work with our elementary age writers. This gave me a chance to get started with my unorthodox approach to helping kids with their writing.
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Creating a Calendar with Kids
A great project for the New Year is making a calendar with your little ones. I'm talking about making a calendar the old fashioned way, using fresh heavy art paper and your favorite combination of markers, colored pencils, oil pastels, or other media. You can integrate all kinds of learning opportunities in this simple, fun activity.
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Play on Words
My co-op kids have had fun with the warm-up we often do for our homeschool writers group. Before we begin writing and critiquing, we warm up with oral word games. In our writers group, by the time we've finished with the word warm-ups, the ice is broken, and the linguistic gears are well-oiled. We're ready to settle down to read our poetry and short stories and practice offering precise and supportive critiques of what each of us has written.
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Self-Editing Checklist
For high school English, we have been working on refining the proper use of grammar, punctuation, and the elements of composition. In order to make sure that my daughter is thoroughly proof-reading her work before she turns it in, I came up with this Self-Editing Checklist.
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Spring into Writing
Spring has sprung... along with a serious bout of spring fever! How can you help your children stay on task while allowing them to revel in the joy of an April morning? For a welcome break, why not take writing outdoors now and then as the weather beckons?
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Getting More Mileage from Writing Assignments
Writing a composition doesn't necessarily mean starting from scratch. As your children practice writing different kinds of paragraphs, stories, articles, and short reports, you can help them expand their skills by tweaking a piece of writing they completed in the past. What a great way to get more mileage out of a writing assignment! Let me share six tips for taking a former piece of writing to a whole new level.
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Speed Scrabble: Boost Spelling and Vocabulary
Pre-writing activities disguised as games make it so much more fun to learn and practice skills. Depending on the activity, you can teach or reinforce spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and writing. One of my family's new favorites, Speed Scrabble (also known as Boardless Scrabble), would be a terrific way to address both spelling and vocabulary.
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Editing Tips for Reluctant Moms
Because writing is a process of discovery, it's doubtful that your student’s first draft will be his best work. Mind you, he will beg to differ. Why, he already likes it the way it is! But whether or not he agrees that his composition should be edited, the truth is that every paper benefits from a second opinion. No matter how many times your child reads and re-reads his own writing, it’s easy for him to miss typos, grammar goofs, or awkward sentences. He knows what he meant to say, so that’s what he sees.
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The Write Way
As homeschool parents often discover, there is no one right way for a child to learn to write. We often try various methods, curricula, tools, and motivations. What might work beautifully for one child may, for another, bring tears—our child’s and our own!
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Holiday Paragraph Writing: Describe a Holiday-Themed Process
The holidays can be a great time to assign writing activities that focus on the festivities, allowing children to immerse themselves in the fun while encouraging productivity. This month, have your kids write a paragraph describing a holiday-themed process where they explain, in a step-by-step manner, how something is done.
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Homeschool Writing: LEGOS Don't Build Themselves, You Know!
Just as a LEGOS™ vehicle can’t take shape without the intentional efforts of a builder, your child cannot learn to write without intentional effort from you. At conferences and conventions, we often hear parents ask, “How much time does this writing program require of ME?” We’re a busy bunch, so believe me when I tell you I understand what it’s like to homeschool while trying to juggle laundry, meal preparation, ministry obligations, and a social calendar. But I also learned during my 15 years of homeschooling that certain subjects just don’t teach themselves, and writing is one of them.
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Describing a Person: Adding Details
Lesson 3 presents a unique set of problems for students. They must describe a person in detail and place the subject in a setting; yet they must not end up writing a narrative, or story. Even with WriteShop’s careful guidelines and instructions, many still end up focusing on the activity and neglecting the actual description of their subject. But it’s good to let your kids struggle with the initial writing process. It helps them wrestle with ideas and words, and it reminds them of the importance of brainstorming adequately and effectively.
Once your students ... Read More »
Choosing Color Words When Writing
You have been working on concreteness. Your student is excited to discover a world of new words in his thesaurus and WriteShop word lists. As a parent, you want to allow him to flex his creative muscles, yet you want to guide him so he learns to choose suitable words. This article focuses on picking just the right color words. With so many tempting choices, your eager yet sometimes immature writer may be using color words that---well---do not exactly work.
Molly, in Lesson 2, describes her golden retriever. She says: “Murphy has long buttercup fur with an ... Read More »
