Here’s a great idea for your 4th-8th graders: Challenge them to write 100-word stories! Not only will this activity appeal to your more reluctant writers, it helps drive home the importance of writing descriptive, concise sentences.

Directions

1. Read a few familiar folk tales, fairy tales, or fables together.
2. Have your children choose one of their favorites and place it in a new setting (in the past, the future, outer space, or a laboratory, for example).
3. Next, have them add characters such as a robot, scientist, detective, or superhero.
4. Instruct them to write a story that has exactly 100 words. It must have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
5. Try doing this exercise several times. Then, ask your children to pick one of their stories and turn it into a polished final piece. At this point, feel free to let them use more than 100 words, but only as long as they don’t repeat main words and the extra words are really necessary to the story’s success.

If your child struggles to choose the correct punctuation at the end of a sentence, do this fun exercise together to help him learn what each punctuation mark sounds like when spoken aloud.  

1.  Write the following words, phrases, and sentences on index cards or pieces of paper, one per card.

All done?      All done.     All done!
I did it.     I did it!
Ready?     Ready!
Turn left.      Turn left!
Yes.     Yes!     Yes?
Okay!      Okay?     Okay.
Tomorrow?      Tomorrow.     Tomorrow!
Be careful!     Be careful.
Grandma is here?     Grandma is here.     Grandma is here!
Right!     Right.     Right? 

2.  Sit side by side so your child can see the cards. Explain that different ending punctuation affects the way that a word or phrase can sound.

• A period ends a calm or matter-of-fact statement. We use a normal speaking voice.
• A question mark comes at the end of a question. When we ask a question aloud, we usually lift our voice at the end.
• An exclamation point shows strong emotion. We use a louder or more excited speaking voice.

3.  Read each card aloud, dramatically using your voice to show how each punctuation mark sounds when it is used.

4.  When finished, invite your child to read the cards aloud by himself and practice using his own voice to show how each punctuation mark sounds.

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng

In the first part of this article, Beating the Summertime Blues, I gave you all sorts of ideas for keeping kids cool, collected, and occupied during that typically looooooong school break. Have you had a chance to try any of them yet? I hope so! Just remember that even if you homeschool year-round, it’s fun to take a breather and enjoy some of the pleasures of summer!

Fun for fun’s sake is … well, FUN! But today, let’s also talk about ways to maintain some semblance of order during the summer. Just because summer affords more freedom, it doesn’t have to become a free-for-all!

Productive Projects

A Time for Routine

Summer is no excuse for chaos. Most kids thrive on routine, so try to keep a schedule. Assign regular chores, for example. Don’t let the kids sleep till noon. And expect them to be productive. We all want our children to be servant-hearted, right? This summer, help them discover the joy of ministry. For starters, make decorations for a nursing home. Volunteer at VBS. As a family, weed an elderly neighbor’s flowerbed or serve a meal at a homeless shelter or park.

A Time for Projects

Summer is also the perfect time to tackle things you can’t seem to get to during the year. Paint the bedrooms. Plant a garden. And don’t forget some structured activities too. Could you teach your children to crochet, bake, sew, or work with wood? How about including crafts, merit badges, 4-H projects, and yes, even schoolwork, in your summertime plan of action?

A Time for Skill-Sharpening

This doesn’t mean you have to pull out the math books. But do look for ways to keep kids on their toes with word puzzles, skill drills, and lots of reading. A quick Google search will yield all sorts of online skill-sharpening activities. Supervised, kids can also explore outer space, ancient Egypt, or a rainforest by visiting quality educational websites.

Creative Writing

Fun Writing Activities

Of course, don’t forget to throw in some writing for good measure. We’re not necessarily talking about full-blown compositions. Journals or diaries help youngsters record their experiences, dreams, and ideas. Letters to grandparents and missionaries bless the recipients and give practice in penmanship and prose.

Consider other assorted writing activities. With a little encouragement, your children can write and produce a play or radio drama, design colorful posters, or create travel brochures for places real or imagined.

If your school-year writing is fairly structured, let summer include more tall tales and stories. Search the Internet for “writing prompts” and let the fun begin!

Round Robins

Gather together after dinner and write round robins: Give each person, even Dad, a different prompt and set the timer. Every three minutes, pass papers clockwise and continue adding to the story that’s before you. When Mom says it’s been long enough, everyone should conclude the tale in front of him. After reading each story aloud, celebrate your authors with a plate of brownies.

Writer’s Treasure Box

Here’s a fun idea: Keep a Writer’s Treasure Box stocked with odds and ends from around the house, such as shells or rocks; game pieces; old eyeglasses, jewelry, or accessories; magnifying glass; newspaper; CD; scraps of luxurious and everyday fabrics; and magazine photos of scenery and people. Let each child choose three items from the box and begin developing a story, either written or oral, featuring those items. When they run out of steam, they pick something new from the box and continue spinning their tales.

Entertaining your family doesn’t have to be elaborate or expensive. When summertime rolls around, the livin’ can be easy if you have a plan in place. Include a bit of R and R, something wet and wild, and a few fun family times. You’ll approach the new school year renewed, refreshed, and ready to roll.

But while it’s here, do enjoy the season— even if you can’t find the frog.

From “Beating the Summertime Blues”
Copyright © 2006 Kim Kautzer
Originally appeared in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, Summer 2006. Used with permission.

When my children were small, they loved pulling out our family photo albums and looking through the pages. Whether they ended up giggling over leggings and side ponytails or reminiscing about a favorite stuffed toy, they were able to revisit key moments of their childhood with each turn of the page.

A Book About Me

Children love to look at their baby pictures and hear stories about when they were younger, don’t they? Here’s a simple, creative way to help your child record some of those special times by making “A Book About Me.”

Gather a handful of photos of your child at memorable times in her life. Look through the pictures together and talk about them. If your child doesn’t remember certain incidents, share stories and memories about those photos.

Ask your child to choose a few of her favorite photos from different stages—as a newborn, a toddler, and a four-year-old, for example (it’s OK if she can’t remember the event or moment when the photo was taken). Have her paste each photo to the top of a fresh sheet of blank paper.

Below the photo, ask her to write some things about the picture (or if she’s reluctant to write, let her tell you about the photo while you write down her words beneath). Prompt her with simple questions, such as:

• Where was the picture taken?
• How old were you?
• What’s happening in the picture?
• Who else is in the picture with you?
• What are you wearing?
• Why is this a special or good memory?

After she has finished, insert each paper into a page protector sleeve and place the sleeves into a slim three-ring binder in chronological order.

Ask your child to flip through her book of stories and share some of the memories with you. Encourage her to read her memory book to other family members too.

Isn’t this a great idea for helping your littles recall happy times? And as they get older, they can continue adding pages to their books.

. . . .

Although this isn’t a WriteShop Primary activity, you’ll find lots of similar creative writing projects for your younger children in the pages of these parent-friendly teacher’s guides. You can learn more by visiting the WriteShop Primary info pages or viewing sample lessons.

I’ve always been a big fan of writing across the curriculum. After all, it just makes sense to tie writing into as many subjects as possible. Why separate the two when they’re so much happier married?

It was’t hard to assign related writing when studying history, art, geography, Bible, or literature, though I must confess that dovetailing math and writing was a stretch for us. (I did sometimes have the kids write their own word problems. That counts, right?)

My new friend Jimmie at Jimmie’s Collage took up Math Mama’s challenge to write a poem that puts a positive spin on math. I think it’s a brilliant idea, and both she and her daughter Sprite wrote some very creative math poems. Here’s one by Sprite. Isn’t it clever?

Untitled, by Sprite
Dividing is divine,
And four plus five is nine.
Adding is just fine,
Four plus five is nine.
Negative and positive are always great.
But four plus six is is not eight.

There are no prizes involved, and no deadline, so why not plan a time to squeeze this activity into your homeschooling—and join Math Mama’s challenge. And if you’d like to share your poems here as well, you know I’d just love to see ‘em!

Meanwhile, you can visit a page filled with fun number poems you’re sure to enjoy. Here’s the first one to whet your appetite!

Money Poem
Penny, penny, easy spent,
Copper brown and worth one cent.
Nickel, nickel, thick and fat,
You’re worth 5. I know that.
Dime, dime, little and thin,
I remember—you’re worth 10.
Quarter, quarter, big and bold,
You’re worth 25, I am told.
Half a dollar, half a dollar, giant size.
50 cents to buy some fries.
Dollar, dollar, green and long,
With 100 cents you can’t go wrong.

Edit: Jimmie duly chastized me, wondering where MY poem is. So I too am rising to the challenge! Here’s my humble offering.

Of Sides and Angles
Geometry, ordered and tidy,
Pyramid, circle, and locus;
Precision of sides and of angles,
A midpoint that keeps me in focus.

Symmetry, area, compass,
Diameter bisects a chord;
Distance, dimension, and drawing,
You see why I never get bored.

Parallel planes and perspective,
The measure and tilt of a line;
Volume and ratio and surface,
Geometry suits me just fine.

~Kim

A Quick Word about Copywork

I’d like to suggest a new way to incorporate copywork into your schooling. In a future blog article, I’ll take time to extol the virtues of copywork, which I think is valuable for pre-writers to 14-year-olds (or thereabouts). But in a nutshell, copying:

• Teaches children a number of foundational writing, grammar, spelling, and punctuation skills.
• Helps them pay attention to detail.
• Offers penmanship practice.
• Introduces them to passages of quality literature.

That’s the Reader’s Digest version! For the time being, you can find a more detailed explanation here: An Introduction to Copywork

A Personalized Recipe Box

OK, so are you ready for a super-fun copywork activity for the junior chefs in your family? Your children won’t be delving into literature, but this little exercise does help fulfill the first three points above.

When I was eleven, I started my own recipe collection in my seventh-grade home economics class—pancakes, Dutchess Spice Cake, and caramel toast were three of my first cards—and I’ve been collecting recipes ever since!

Your children can embark on this journey too. Here’s how:

1. Buy them a set of cute recipe cards, or print some out on card stock. There are tons of free printables available in patterns to suit both boys and girls.
2. Sit them down with your own recipes and cookbooks, using sticky notes to mark your children’s personal favorites as well as special family recipes. Make sure to include several simple recipes they can prepare themselves.
3. Provide pens or pencils and let the copying begin.

Younger, slower, or reluctant writers should have a time limit—perhaps five to ten minutes, depending on the child, but in general, keep this exercise to 20 minutes or less. Motivated writers will have so much fun that they may use this “writing” time as an excuse to avoid other schoolwork, so they’ll benefit from a timer as well.

As your children’s assortment of recipe cards grows, reward them with recipe dividers and a personalized file box to hold their collection.

They’ll treasure it someday, just as I treasure mine!

Writing with lists is still…writing!

Yep—list-making is a bona fide writing activity!

Most children like to create lists anyway, but writing out lists—from the mundane to the meaningful—also helps them become more organized. Taken a step further, when list-making is used as a brainstorming tool, it can even help students plan the elements of an essay or story.

So where do you start? Here are some suggestions for your budding list-makers:

• List your various personal possessions such as baseball cards, stuffed animals, shoes, or CDs.
• Inventory furniture in a room or items in a junk drawer, jewelry box, or medicine cabinet.
• List states you’ve traveled to, friends you know, or places you’d like to visit.
• Make lists of schoolwork, dates for soccer practice and games, family birthdays, to-do lists, etc.

Holiday list-making ideas

Ways We Can Serve Others

There are so many ways your family can think of others, particularly at the holidays. Encourage your kids to list ideas such as baking cookies for a neighbor, packing a shoebox for child in a third-world country, or giving away some of their own toys to needy children.

Christmas or Holiday Traditions

Make a list of your family’s favorite holiday activities. As an example, here’s a list of Kautzer Christmas traditions:

1. Watch lots of Christmas movies
2. Make gingerbread houses
3. Annual neighborhood cookie exchange party
4. Big family dinner Christmas Eve
5. New Christmas jammies
6. Candlelight service at 11 p.m.
7. Block off the stairway with toilet paper so no one sneaks downstairs Christmas morning
8. Stockings first, then breakfast, then presents under the tree
9. Freeze fresh peaches in July for Christmas breakfast
10. New ornament for each grandchild: Eli – snowmen; Grant - bears; Ryan – cookie ornaments; Hannah and Tiana – angels; Ginny – farm animals
11. Jesus got three gifts from the wise men, so each person gets three presents under the tree.

Christmas Wish Lists

Write out a wish list—and not just a list of things your child wants to get for Christmas (though that’s always fun too). In addition, how about a list that tells what your child thinks someone else would like. For example, Grandma might want:

1. Warm slippers.
2. A handwritten note from me.
3. A picture of me.
4. Someone to shovel snow from her sidewalk.
5. To go out to breakfast with Dad and me. 

Year-round list-making fun

Try some of these suggestions to spark ideas for using list-making as part of your schooling all year long. Though lists are useful and fun for all ages and learning styles, they especially appeal to reluctant writers or students with learning difficulties because they’re short, contained, and relevant.

1. Book of Lists. Buy each child a special spiral notebook or journal. This can become his or her own personal Book of Lists.
2. School Assignments. For starters, your children could make lists of books they’ve read this year, countries or states they’ve studied, Colonial American occupations they’ve learned about, American presidents, British monarchs, 27 prepositions, or eight items one might put into an historical time capsule.
3. 10 Things. Write a series of ”10 Things” lists: 10 New Year’s resolutions, 10 favorite cookies, 10 joyful moments, 10 things I should throw away, etc.
4. Adding Flair. Suggest illustrating some of the pages or adding personal photos or pictures cut from magazines or old calendars.
5. Lists Galore. Check out the Writing Fix Personal List Generator. This clever tool generates a random question, which your child answers by making a list. Should you want to take it one step further, there’s also an assignment for writing a related composition. If list-making is your goal, simply skip the composition. Alternatively, make note of the composition topic and assign it another time.
6. The List and Nothing but the List. Remember that the list itself can (and often should) be the goal. Don’t get hung up on needing to see paragraphs every time.

Share a comment: Make a list of any kind in the comment box, whether it’s today’s errand list, a list of supplies you need for a new project, or a list of skills you’d like to learn. Be creative!

2009 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

Brrrrrr! Here’s an icy blast of words that will give your young writers a leg up when they’re crafting stories and poems about winter. Remember—using a word bank isn’t cheating! It’s simply another great tool to slip into your children’s tool belt of writing aids.

Try the activities below, and stay tuned for more winter writing ideas and prompts!

Winter Word Bank

winter, season, weather, December, January, February, scarf, hat, cap, beanie, mittens, gloves, sweater, jacket, coat, vest, shawl, leggings, boots, pajamas, robe, slippers, socks, booties, wool, fleece, heavy, wrap, bundle, blanket, comforter, quilt, patchwork, skiing, sledding, skating,  jingle, shiver, chill, breath, snowstorm, blizzard, rain, sleet, snow, snowflakes, snow bank, snowball, powder, drift, crust, ice, icicles, crystals, frost, cold, bitter, windy, nippy, gusting, frozen, frigid, sparkling, slippery, icy, crunchy, lacy, delicate, soft, fluffy, knee-deep, powdery, freezing, melting, blustery, cloudy, dreary, drippy, slushy, rainy, snowman, shovel, bells, sled, sleigh, skis, ice skates, snowboard, toboggan, hill, mountain, pond, rink, forest, woods, creek, river, lane, road, holly, pine, cedar, fir, balsam, scent, boughs, wreath, trees, branches, bare, dark, silvery, blue, white, gray, brown, clear, piney, bird feeder, cardinal, suet, berries, hibernate, knit, sew, snuggle, read, book, stories, hearth, smoke, chimney, coals, flames, fire, fireplace, blazing, crackling, glowing, warm, cozy, toasty, spiced, spicy, tea, cider, cocoa, mug, popcorn, sugar, vanilla, spice, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking, aroma, waft

Word Bank Activities

Categories. Here’s a fun pre-writing activity! Copy the list of winter words to a Word document or Notepad. Then have your child copy/paste words into different categories. Alternatively, she can write the words by hand, crossing them off the list as she transfers them to her paper.

The older the child, the more detailed or specific the categories can be. This is not an exact science, so allow freedom and flexibility. Here are some ideas:

General Categories

• Indoor winter words
• Outdoor winter words

Specific Categories

• Adjectives
• Activities and outdoor-fun words
• Weather words
• Clothing words
• Baking or food words
• Comfort words
• Warm and cozy words
• Cold words
• Other ____________________

Synonyms. Older students can add to their Winter Word Bank and build up their writing vocabulary by looking up some of the words in a thesaurus and adding a few interesting synonyms to the list. If you need a good thesaurus, I highly recommend The Synonym Finder. It’s my all-time fave!

Looking for Christmas word lists? Check these out!

• Christmas word banks, part 1: Jesus is born
• Christmas word banks, part 2: Ho, ho, ho!

Copyright 2009 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

. . . . .

Share a comment: What are five of your favorite or most descriptive winter words? Or, What new winter words would you like to add to this word bank?

“Write a paragraph about celebrating Christmas.”

Seems easy enough, right? But to struggling writers, this kind of assignment is not only unhelpful, it’s also fear-inducing—for the simple reason that it’s just too vague. 

The 5 Ws

All children—but especially reluctant writers—benefit from a blueprint that lets them know what’s expected and how to achieve their goal. Using the 5 Ws—who, what, when, where, why (and also how)—helps children organize their thoughts before writing. It’s a great brainstorming tool that alleviates the insecurity of writer’s block and encourages more fluent writing.

A Blueprint for Writing

Create a simple graphic organizer to help a young or reluctant child plan and organize a paragraph about celebrating Christmas.

• Who celebrates Christmas with me?
• What things do we do? How do we celebrate? In what ways?
• When do we celebrate?
• Where do we celebrate?
• Why do I celebrate Christmas?

Making It Unique

Older, motivated, or more articulate children can also follow this plan, but instead of writing one paragraph, they can write a longer story by developing a new paragraph to answer each question. And all children should know that it’s okay to rearrange the questions in the order they like best (for example, they might want to start out explaining why).

Using Word Banks

Your children will probably find it helpful to use word banks so they have a pool of vocabulary words available to them. A list of words about celebrating Jesus’ birth can be found at Christmas word banks, part 1: Jesus is born. Also see Christmas word banks, part 2: Ho, ho, ho! for a different assortment of holiday-themed words.

What’s this? A ragged fir tree helps a stranger on a cold night? A weary homeless man discovers a wallet full of money outside a bakery? A bad-tempered candy maker finds a magic candy cane and disappears into a snow globe? What kid wouldn’t love to write a holiday story filled with such hope, whimsy, or intrigue?

Award-winning WriteShop® StoryBuilders card decks help to jumpstart a creative writing project by providing children with the basic elements of a story—character, character trait, setting, and plot—laying a foundation for a joyful writing experience with some clever surprises thrown in along the way.

During the holidays, use the Christmas Mini-Builder to occupy bored or antsy kids and teens with these fun writing prompts. You get 96 cards to download and print, along with lots of suggestions for writing games and activities.

Christmas Mini-Builder Is on Sale!

Save 25%! Now through December 15, the Christmas Mini-Builder is only $2.98, so grab yours now!