One Question a Day Journal for Kids: 365 Days All about Me ~ a book review

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from the author. All views expressed are my honest opinion.

I adore this journal! One Question a Day Journal for Kids: 365 Days All about Me by MaryAnne Kochenderfer, PhD. is just an adorable start to creative writing for youngsters. Aimed at ages 6-9, boys and girls alike will enjoy writing about their likes, dislikes, and imaginations gone wild.

Journaling, or simply writing down thoughts and ideas, is a fun and creative way for students to get into the habit of putting their own words on paper without it being graded or for someone else to read. It allows students to feel safe in being expressive and creative, even outrageous, with ideas. Freedom to be as detailed or as vague as desired that moment is a wonderful way for students to just let the words flow. Prompts, or simply “setting the stage”, opens up that door and allows the creative juices to flow.

One Question a Day Journal for Kids is a comfortably sized book for students ages 6-9, though I can truly seeing this work a tad bit younger depending on the student or a couple years older for a struggling writer. Or even at the older end of the age range for a student who just wants to create a book about their own ideas and thoughts. There are 365 prompts but they can be completed in any order desired by the writer. After all, authors like some freedom, right? Writing about what strikes the fancy on any given day will create better writing. So, allow the freedom.

The book starts with a short introduction to the journal writer, noting that it is all about the person answering the prompts. It is that person’s journal so make it work in a way that fits that person best. Great advice!

Each day is number (Day 1, Day 2, etc.) and has a space to put the date. Then there is a short question to answer that is just a sentence or two long. These range from “Imagine you are as small as an ant. What would the world look like to you?” to “What was something you did today? Try to make it sound exciting (even if it wasn’t).” “Would you rather”s and imaginative creatures, dream classes to dream animals, there are so many unique and exciting prompts for students to answer! Each prompt includes 3 lines for students to write their answer.

This journal really becomes a part of the writer as it is completed. Each day, it tells a little bit more about the special person filling it in. What a wonderful gift for later in life. Hopes and dreams! I can see this being a treasured keepsake.

Many youngsters will love this journal. You may even have a youngster who is a bit younger than the stated age and who is not yet independently writing. Don’t let that deter you! Just allow the child to narrate and you scribe their answer. What a great way to see the child’s growth. You could even do a question a week and allow the book to grow with the child. There are so many ways for this to be used! I wish my girls were not so much older. I still may try to get them to complete some of these just to see what they would do! I can see my youngest (she’ll be 8th grade next year) using this in some way to keep her creative writing going. Writing is not her favorite thing but quite a few of these prompts would get her imagination running!

One Question a Day Journal for Kids: 365 Days All about Me by MaryAnne Kochenderfer, PhD. is definitely something I recommend looking into. This will be a wonderful journal to look back on and will show you things you don’t know about your student now. Check it out. It is for purchase on Amazon. (Not an affiliate link.) Visit the author at Mama Smiles – Joyful Parenting or on Facebook.

Blessings,
Lori, At Home.

Fun Writing with Creative Word Studio ~ a Crew review

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Writing – it can either bring excitement or dread, depending on experience and enjoyment. Dread used to be where Miss J lived on this one. She wanted to write but she didn’t enjoy the processes that we had been working through. We have tried several programs but this one just may stick longer than a semester. Creative Word Studio is just that – a way to deal with words creatively. Their creative writing program is simple yet productive and Miss J has been enjoying using Sparkling Bits of Writing Book 1.

Sparkling Bits of Writing Book 1 is aimed towards 5th and 6th graders. Sparkling Bits of Writing Book 2 is aimed at 7th and 8th graders. Miss J just completed 6th grade and, even if she won’t admit it, has been really enjoying Sparkling Bits of Writing Book 1. It is the first thing she chooses to do every day in her school work AND I don’t have to tell her to start her school. Now part of that is likely maturity but I attribute a good deal of it to the fact that she has found something she looks forward to doing.

Creative Word Studio is a family business. Andrew and Jennifer Yoder founded the company to develop a creative writing curriculum that they saw a significant need for. With an education background, there is a fresh approach to the writing processes found with the company. You can also find tips and ideas for all sorts of writing on their blog, such as this post about poetry.

Sparkling Bits of Writing Book 1 is the book that Miss J has been using (and secretly enjoying – just catching that smile she tries to hide when we talk about this is tons of fun for me). The consumable book is softback with laminated paper covers and a spiral binding. Each student needs their own book. The Introduction is written directly to the student and then there is a page of instructions, which are really just a heads-up for what the lessons will look like. The book contains 75 lessons. At about 2 lessons per week, this could take you through an entire school year. We have actually been doing one lesson a day, so four lessons per week. I told you she liked it! 🙂

So, what types of writing will the student do? It generally follows this order of lessons: free writing, mini writing lesson, reading response, mini writing lesson, mini writing lesson. Free writing is just that – writing freely for a period of time about whatever comes to mind. The reading responses are to excerpts from literature such as The Secret Garden, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Man-Eaters Don’t Knock, or poetry such as “Snow” by Lucy A Martin. The mini writing lessons may have them working on wording, paragraphs, onomatopoeia, or using a thesaurus. Lots of variety!

The lessons are unique and different. Many people would likely call them prompts but the format is different and instructive instead of completely open ended, as most prompts are. For example, one of the lessons is about writing a conversation. But it has to be a conversation between 2 inanimate objects. There is an example conversation written by a student and then some ideas of the objects that students might want to choose from. They can always choose their own but this way, they won’t get stuck on what to choose.

Another example was the question “What matters to you?” As with all assignments, there was a student sample to get an idea of the assignment. The student was given the instruction of selecting a shady circle of lawn and taking at least 5 minutes to think before starting to write. Well, it was rainy that day so Miss J chose a comfy place to sit and write. She then wrote about what she felt mattered most to her.

Each assignment page has the lesson number and type. There is a place for the student’s name and the date. The assignment and sample writing are given. This is followed by the page being lined. The back of every page is also lined so there is plenty of space for the student to write.

I love that Jennifer Yoder acknowledges for the students that sometimes you get stuck in your writing and that is okay. In the instructions, she actually tells them that if they get stuck to just keep writing “what shall I write next, what shall I write next . . . ” That is such a practical and helpful suggestions because all too often we tell the kids they can come up with something and maybe, just maybe, they truly can’t at the moment. This gives them permission to struggle a bit but to not quit. And honestly, it is what I do sometimes, so it really resonated with me.

Another bit of Sparkling Bits of Writing Book 1 that I like is the freedom to not finish out to perfection a piece of writing. As a writer, you don’t always love everything you write. Finishing a piece you don’t like is hard. Not every piece in this book is suggested as a “Gold Piece.” A Gold Piece is one that is suggested for editing, revising, and rewriting a final draft for grading. Even this is something that can be modified. But, again, I like the freedom of noting that just completing the first write is sometimes enough. The rubric for grading a Gold Piece is inside the back cover of the spiral.

I found this to be a fresh and unique feeling approach to creative writing. It is appealing to my reluctant writer. And I have already seen growth and change with this. Please visit the Homeschool Review Crew to read the reviews from other families who have been using Sparkling Bits of Writing Book 1 and Sparkling Bits of Writing Book 2 from Creative Word Studio.

Blessings,
Lori, At Home.

Jump In – a writing program ~ a Crew review

Writing is something that has come naturally for Miss L yet it is something that she needed guidance and stretching with. Writing poetry, writing stories, creating cards, retelling events – it was all fairly comfortable for her to do. But, there is more to writing, composition, than just the creative edge of it. There is structure and elements to it, as well as different styles yet unexplored for Miss L, that she could use some guidance in. Jump In, 2nd Edition is a new edition of a program that I used with the oldest giggly girl a couple of years ago for learning composition in middle school.  Sharon Watson is the author of this program and it is a delight for youth to work with. Writing with Sharon Watson has produced yet another outstanding program that encourages students to write, to understand the process of writing, and to do well with writing by just “jumping in.”

We received the digital version of this program for this review. It came as a PDF file. We received both the student textbook and the Teacher’s Guide. Each is a different file.

The Jump In, 2nd Edition student textbook is 292 pages long. It is designed for the student to write their answers and work right onto the page. Miss L enjoys working with the computer and so she used the Fill & Sign option on the PDF reader to type her answers onto the PDF. She then saved it each time she had completed her day’s work so that we had a complete copy of her work. There were some activities that it was better to print so we did print a few of the pages.

example of typing answers into the PDF

 

The student textbook is written directly to the student. There is a Table of Contents and the they are off, jumping right in. The first section, Get Your Feet Wet, has a few skills and gets the student writing in easy bits and pieces right off the bat. The first section is designed to help ease the student’s concerns about writing and help them evaluate what they like and don’t like about writing. It changes the process a bit from the expected. Each section has a number of “skills” and the first section has three. These skills are the small bites that, when put together, create a complete piece of writing.

explaining how they have changed the process

The students will work on writing about opinions, persuasive writing, cause and effect,  newspaper articles, narrations, poetry, and more. There are a whole host of styles here for the students to explore with Jump In. And each one of these styles takes the student through it skill by skill. The number of skills in each style ranges from 6 to about 17, depending on what has been taught previously that applies to the writing being developed.

After the final style of writing, there is a section titled “My Locker.” This section contains checklists and worksheets that the student has used in different sections of the program. There is a page on the steps of the writing process, one with proofreading tips, and one titled “Mistake Medic.” There is a book report form and the worksheet for writing a paragraph. The final important part is the Index. This can help a student use this program long into the future by being able to look up how to write a certain style and getting the tips and tricks Sharon Watson gives in Jump In.

worksheet on Create Your Own Paragraph

And, they have thought of everything. Knowing how quickly sources can change, the lesson for creating a works cited page is online. The text tells the student to visit the website for the lesson so that it can be kept up-to-date in this world of every changing technology. What a great idea! No more obsolete texts.

The Jump In Teacher’s Guide is 123 pages long. It is so much more than an answer key. You do get the answers for each of the skills in the student textbook but prior to that you get a whole lot more. There are three different schedule options – 1 year, 2 year, and 3 year schedules that you can use to help guide you in setting the schedule for your student. A competent, confident student can use the 1 year schedule while a young student will likely be better suited for the 3 year schedule.

Following some random facts (98 lessons called Skills plus 19 more that are assignments and worksheets; “moments of humor may pop up randomly”), there is a list of all of the writing projects or assignments in the program.

some of the assignments to be done

Then we get to The Teacher’s Backpack. This contains many of the materials found in the student textbook under My Locker. Plus, we get additional Do’s and Don’ts for different styles AND it is noted on the pages where it is located in the student’s materials.

As a writing teacher, one of the most intimidating parts for me is grading the writing. Sharon Watson removes that intimidation for me by giving us pages of sample essays and grading grids (rubrics or scales). There are sample essays for giving an A, B, C, D, or F. But not just the essay is there. She also includes an explanation of the things that were done well and where improvement could be made for each essay. This is super helpful.

The grading grids are fabulous, also. Not only do we have the example, but we have the rubric which takes out the guess work. Each piece of what should be included in a high-quality essay is listed along with how many points should be given for that skill. (These are found at the end of the guide.)

Grading Grid for an opinion essay

There are Ten Minute Writing Plunges included. There are enough plunges (prompts) to be able to use a plunge four days a week each week of the year. They are labeled by month and there are some guidelines to help determine when it is best to utilize these plunges. There is a lot of flexibility with these. These will provide good breaks from the workbook or give some warm-up writing when working on assignments.

The answer key portion of the Teacher’s Guide is well labeled. You can find exactly what the student should be doing with answers to the daily lessons, writing assignments, and schedules. Even when there is no specific answer, there is enough information included for each answer that grading is easy.

Example of the answer key

Miss L’s Thoughts:

I felt like the amount of instruction given made what I was supposed to do very clear. I like that there are intriguing prompts. The way I was encouraged to do things and the way the examples were given made a lot of sense. As a PDF, this was easy to get to and use. I do think other students would enjoy and benefit from this program.

My Thoughts:

This is a quality program that is adaptable and flexible, making it easy to work with what your student needs. It is easy to use. Miss L completed one skill a day, about three days a week with more time dedicated to the final writing assignment in the style. Opinions was not a simple style for Miss L to start with. But, we felt like it was important to work through the styles in the order presented so that the skills can build one on another.

This is a high quality program that empowers the student to work hard while learning skill by skill what is needed to write strong, effective works. Whether a young 6th grader or a high-schooler who needs a bit of help with writing, this program will provide the encouragement and support the student needs to become a strong writer.

Visit the Writing with Sharon Watson website to get a sample of Jump In, 2nd Edition.

Also, if you are looking for a high school literature course, take a look at the review we did of Characters In Crisis. It was a great program for high school that my oldest giggly girl really enjoyed.

Blessings,
Lori, At Home.

Please click on the banner below to visit the Homeschool Review Crew and read more reviews. Many families have been using Jump In so you can read how it worked for their students.

Tell a Fairy Tale – Middle School Monday

Recently, our library hosted a contest for Tell a Fairy Tale Day. The actual day was Feb 26 this year. The older two giggly girls decided to enter a fairy tale into a contest that was held. We utilized that as  writing lessons for part of that week. This was a fun and simple way to engage the girls in some creative writing. The instructions were simple: write your own fairy tale in the space provided and turn it in. They were encouraged to add an image to go along with tale.

I enjoyed their fairy tales and both of them were awarded honorable mentions. I thought I would share their entries, since they were pretty short.

Miss L, age 10

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there lived a king and queen, whom were named King William and Queen Adalaide. Together, they ruled wisely, and were fair and just in every needed advisement. They were rich in all but one thing, which was a child, which they wanted very much. Then one day, the Queen had a healthy, pretty little girl, and the whole kingdom erupted into celebration that stayed on for a week. The princess had skin like porcelain, hair like the midnight sky, eyes like sapphires, and lips like rubies. And only grew fairer every passing day. But then came the day she turned sixteen, which was the age the crown was handed down to the heir. Before the princess could become Queen, she needed to have a husband. So she set off on a quest to find a prince but none she visited seemed right. Finally, she came to a little island called Lilitia. There she met a girl named Lewana, who was looking for her brother who had run away from home. The two girls quickly become best friends and decided to quest together. The next day, the two friends came upon a large town and agreed to hail one another if they found what either was looking for. And so they set off. Soon the princess came upon a large inn, with many inside. One man in particular caught her eye and they fell in love on first sight. He said he was a prince, and the princess summoned Lewana. Lewana took one look at the prince and ran to embrace him because the prince was also Lewana’s brother. They all went back to the princess’s castle and lived happily every after.

Miss E, age 12

Once upon a time, just past the sparkling waterfall and the shining rainbow was a city of pixies. They were led by a single brave pixie named Joyce. Joyce was a curious pixie and one day she wandered out of the forest and into a house where a little girl sat reading a book outside.

Joyce flew up to the girl and said, “Hi! My name is Joyce. What is yours?”

The girl dropped her book in surprise. “C-C-Crystal. Are you a fairy?”

Joyce frowned. “Why do people always think that? No. I am a pixie. Do you need a friend?”

Crystal’s mouth dropped open. “How did you know? I do need a friend. It is just me and my mom here.”

“My mom and I,” Joyce corrected. “Why don’t you come to my city? Humans used to visit us. Not anymore though. But we have a human-sized house.”

“Oh, Oh, Thank you so much!” Crystal yelled, jumping up and down. She and her mom went to live with the pixies and they all lived happily ever after!

Such a fun way to incorporate creativity and writing into our week! I love it when things come out so simply and the girls are able to participate in community activities like this. Did your library have a Tell a Fairy Tale Day? Do they often do fun activities to get involved with? I highly recommend friending a librarian and making visiting a library part of your regular homeschooling activities if it is at all possible. Our librarians are fantastic and definitely add so much to our unit studies.

At Home.

Creative Freewriting Adventure ~ a Crew review

Two of the three giggly girls are tremendous writers and seem to really enjoy finding creative outlets for their writing. This continuous search for various writing outlets was one of the reason we were interested in the Creative Freewriting Adventure from Home School Adventure Co. We also received a copy of the Creative Freewriting Adventure Coloring Book Edition.

 Stacy Ferrell is the author of this writing supplement. She has written various curriculums published through Home School Adventure Co, including Philosophy Adventure, Walking with the Waodani, Celebrating Manhood: a rite of passage guide, and I’d Rather Be Your Mommy.

Creative Freewriting Adventure was developed as a supplemental writing program to complement various other programs published by the company, including The Wise Woman with Analysis Journal, Philosophy Adventure, and Mere Christianity Critical Analysis Journal. The idea was to give the students some opportunities for fun, creative writing in the midst of a longer-term, more intensive writing project.

This program contains 10 exercises, some of which actually have two writing activities. Each exercise begins with some background information, a descriptive scene (titled Your Journey), and Your Assignment. The exercises include the philosophers Thales, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Democritus. There are four exercises on The Wise Woman. The final two exercises are centered a bit more on themes from Mere Christianity.

After the student has read the information and Your Journey, the Your Assignment part takes them into the writing. These are a series of questions designed to jog the student’s memory, give them ideas and help them find ways to increase the descriptiveness of their writing. Then, a timer is set for 15 minutes and the writing begins. At 15 minutes, the exercise is over. If the girls were on a roll, I never stopped them at 15 minutes. They wanted to finish the story that was running in their heads, so I let them.

This quick but creative process is what I thought would appeal greatly to my girls. I was mistaken here. While some of the prompts worked really well (Thales falling in a well and the one with talking animals), others were complete dead ends for the girls. We tried several of them more than once with a break in between. It was just a no-go.

I believe that these did not work as well for the girls because they like to write and they write often. They are so creative that they felt boxed in by the prompts and they felt like  many of the exercises ended the story rather than giving them an opening for continuing the story.

The background information was where we got the most joy from these lessons. Miss E has been studying Ancient Greece and the first four exercises include some information on some of the Greek philosophers. This was pretty fascinating for her (and me). It was also fun for us to revisit some of the story of The Wise Woman, which we reviewed a couple of years ago.

We received PDF downloads of both the Creative Freewriting Adventure and the Creative Freewriting Adventure Coloring Book Edition. There is very little difference between the two. They both include the same written information and printable pages for doing the creative writing assignment on. The coloring book edition also includes a coloring page for each of the exercises.

If you have an older student who needs some ideas for writing, some prompts, or some questions to help them get more creative and descriptive in their writing, this might be a good supplement for you to look at.

At Home.

 

Homeschool Review Crew families have been using the Creative Freewriting Adventure, Walking with the Waodani, Celebrating Manhood, and I’d Rather Be Your Mommy. Click the banner below to read more reviews.

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Creativity Encouraged

We love to encourage the girls to be creative. Whether it is through crafts, arts, or other means, creativity strengthens the brain and allows personal expression and out of the box thinking. These are extremely important in healthy development and critical thinking ability.

Because we believe so strongly in encouraging creativity, I was thrilled when we received an unexpected review product in the mail – Thinking Tree Journals! I had hoped to receive one but nope. We were given six to review. I am going to talk about three of them today and the others will be in an additional post next week.

These journals are just a few of the many products created by Sarah Janisse Brown and her family through their company Thinking Tree Publishing. This homeschooling family has created these journals that can be easily adapted to fit whatever need your family has. Today, I’ll be discussing the Poetry Writing Journal, the Creative Writing Journal, and the Big Sister and Little Sister Coloring Book.

Poetry Writing Journal

The official title of this one is Poetry Writing Journal- Color, Draw & Doodle: Do-It-Yourself Homeschooling. It is a soft back journal with laminated paper covers that are very study. It is approximately 9 x 12, so just bigger than a piece of notebook paper. It has white pages with black print. Each two-page spread has a page with an image to color or draw and a page with lines for writing poetry to go along with the image. There are 38 two-page spreads so quite a bit of opportunity for poetry creation and coloring/drawing.

Upon arrival at the house, this one was grabbed up by Miss L. She is 10 and absolutely adores poetry. Creating poetry is one of her very favorite things to do. She immediately sat down and wrote a poem based off of one of the images in the book. She has not colored it the image yet but the poem is just a joy to read. She has since created some others but here is her first one in the book.

Creative Writing Journal

This journal is similar in physical aspects to the poetry journal. It is just bigger than a notebook page and has a soft cover. It includes over 40 two-page spreads for writing stories. One page is an image or a place to draw and doodle images and the other is a lined page for writing a story to accompany the image. The images can be colored and so make a nice combination of image and story. This encourages creativity by giving a prompt that is still somewhat specific but yet very open to interpretation.

Miss E, age 12, grabbed this book upon opening the box of journals and immediately chose an image to spin her story off of. Her story was a joy to read and definitely reflects her personality. She wrote it and enjoyed sharing the story with the family. There are many more images to prompt stories or other writings from and I can’t wait to see what all will come of this style of writing prompts.

Big Sister and Little Sister – a Coloring Book for Two

This is one I really expected to be snapped up. The girls were really excited about it when they saw it but it has only been used once or twice since it arrived. Perhaps with all the excitement about the other journals, this one has been kind of buried. Yet, I think it will be lots of fun for the girls to enjoy together since Miss E and Miss J enjoy listening to audio books together.

This coloring books is also approximately 9×12 and is a soft cover journal. The book has plenty of two-page spreads to keep the sisters coloring together for a while, even if they did one every single day. There are over 30 sets of coloring pages with dulpicate images on both sides of the spread. Some are labeled as big sister and little sister, while others are not. Some of them are printed on both the front and back of pages but there are a number of the image sets that are printed on one side of the page only so that the sisters can color with markers if they choose to without ruining another picture that was colored. I love that thoughtfulness of detail!

My thoughts:

I truly am thankful to have these journals. They came just a couple of days before At Home Dad has shoulder surgery so they provided an easy way to continue schooling when we needed to be busy and away from home a bit more. They could easily be taken to grandma’s house during those first few days of recovery and grandma could encourage school without having to push math or science.

Creative engagement of the brain strengthens it in so many ways and it definitely encourages stretching of thinking and ideas. Allowing the girls to think differently and to express it in a variety of ways is so helpful to them and their development. Thinking differently is a definite advantage and I believe that these Thinking Tree journals are another tool that encourages the giggly girls to think in whatever way they desire. Stronger thinkers are stronger people. Thank you, Thinking Tree, for allowing us to experience some of your wonderful tools for training strong thinkers.

The next Thinking Tree post will include Travel Dreams Journal, Spelling Time, and Mom’s Fun-Schooling Handbook.

At Home.

 

Story Cubes Story Time

Miss J was given a new set of story cubes the other day and decided to use them this afternoon to create a new story. Here is her fun story:

There was a little girl and she was using a map to find treasure in a cave. Her name was Ezil and she saw the treasure. It was a key. She was puzzled. Then she saw a door. But it was locked. Then she saw that there were two pictures that were the same on the door and on the key and unlocked the door. There was a new world with planes that were always full! And apples with notes in them! And canes that were made out of sugar cane! And clocks that were just on time to tick-tock! And it snowed there but it never did get cold! And the best thing of all is that there are NO LOCKS!

Hope you enjoyed reading about her new land! Story Cubes are a fantastic way to prompt some creative writing and allow tons of freedom for the student. This is not a post that is sponsored. It is a product we love. We have three or four sets of story cubes, as each set has different characters. If you don’t have any, I highly recommend them.

At Home.

This post is included in the Homeschool Review Crew Homeschool Collection for March 2019. Click the image below to see the entire collection for March.

My New Cereal

 

My name is Miss L. I am 10 years old. This morning, for my creative writing, I chose to use the writing prompt that told me to make a breakfast cereal that gave the consumer super powers. this is what I wrote on the blank below it:

It would let you talk in all different kinds of languages-Polish, Portuguese, French, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, German, Bulgarian, Swedish, African, Cambodian, Irish, Mexican, Russian, Spanish, Icelandic, Indian, Turkish, Arabian, and even Native American. Everything you can think of-and more! It would taste deliciously fruity, like, really fruity, and not just artificially flavored, with a refreshing taste of mint. I’d come with a pink bowl and spoon to eat it with. And I’d call it Fruity Babble.

 

At Home.

Writers In Residence ~ a TOS review

For a few weeks now, Miss L has been working with Writers in Residence , a product from Apologia Educational Ministries for this review. It has been a fantastic fit!

Miss L is currently 9 years old and really enjoys writing, so I was not sure this would be a good fit for her. After all, writing programs tend to be directed at students who don’t like to write all that much or are struggling with it. This one? It is a good fit for all students, I think. Whether they like to write, love to write, or would rather it just all disappear for good. By drawing on the student’s personal memories, life, and imagination for writing material, this program pulls the student into the process of becoming a writer.

When you purchase Writers In Residence Volume 1 Apprentice set, you will receive two books. One is the all-in-one student text and workbook. The second is the answer key. You do need both of these for this program to work its magic.

The student text and workbook is where the student does most of their work. The student reads and writes in this one book. The work on their writing assignments here, their grammar work, their editing work, everything! It came with a plastic spiral binding on it. It is huge! Miss L did not want me to take the pages off of the spiral to put them into smaller sections to work with but honestly, it would be a whole lot easier to work with. The book is about 3 inches thick! There is a ton of fantastic information and reading and exercises here.

The first 30ish pages of the student text are “how to use this book.” Read these. Period. It is such good information and it makes the program all pull together in your head. I learned a whole lot reading this section and highlight some parts that I found enlightening. Do this first. Then, dig into seeing what else is in the book.

“Grammar doesn’t create content. But it can create beauty.” (p. xxvi)

“Overemphasizing correct spelling often results in students using only words they can confidently spell. This creates a boring and stilted writing style that is far below what the child is capable of thinking, imagining, and talking about. In the process, the child’s voice is lost, not captured.” (p. xxiii)

Thinking as a writer and building the skills of a good writer are the goals of Writers In Residence. The whole book is designed to help the students begin seeing everything around them, all that they have experienced, as something to tuck away for later use. Beginning to think as a writer, to use words differently, to structure sentences differently – all these are worked on in this book.

Writers In Residence contains five units. Each unit focuses on a different type of authentic writing style. These are:
1 – When I Was Young (I Remember): uses Cynthia Rylant’s When I Was Young In The Mountains as a literature example
2 – Very Truly Yours (I Imagine): uses Patricia MacLachlan’s Sarah, Plain and Tall as a literature example
3 – My Family Hall of Fame (I Investigate): uses Roald Dahl’s Boy: Tales of Childhood as a literature example
4 – My Favorite Author (I Think): has an expert writer example but I cannot locate the authorship of it
5 – The History of Me (I Remember): uses excepts from Beverly Cleary’s A Girl from Yamhill: A Memoir, Sid Fleischman’s The Abracadabra Kid, and an essay by Mary Pope Osborne titled “All-Ball”.
6 – Zap! Pow! Kazam! (I Imagine): the expert model was written specifically for WIR and does not give an author

I really appreciate the focus here on quality literature from well-known authors as examples for what is being taught. In addition to these, there is an interview prior to each unit with a Christian author. These include Bill Myers, Amy Green, Irene Howat, Jason Lethcoe, Amy Parker and Phil Vischer. (We have gotten some new reading material by looking up these authors at the library. We didn’t know any of them before this!) This authenticity and focus is so helpful in encouraging young writers.

Each unit works through a set pattern. There are four modules in each unit and within each module there are a number of activities. These are well-designated and the instructions for each are clearly written, as well as clear indication of when there are corresponding answers to be found in the answer key. Within each unit, there are repeated elements that help keep the students focused. These elements are:

• Introduction to the unit
• rubric for the final product of the unit
• writer’s questions for each module of the unit
• sneak peek of what will be learned for each module of the unit
• the writing assignment specific to each module (these build on each other to create the final product of the whole unit)
• expert model for the module
• student samples
• writer’s toolbox with specific strategies expert writers use
• graphic organizers for working through the mini-assignments
• The Sandbox – an assignment that helps students experiment with various writing strategies
• vocabulary to help build a stronger usage of words
• word sleuth encourages students to add to their word collection the words that they don’t know
• module checklist is a specific rubric to help the evaluate the student’s work within the module
• writer’s workshop is a module in each unit that focuses on sentence structure
• review your progress sections encourage self-evaluation and sharing of the student’s work

While each unit has the goal of creating a completed piece of high-quality writing, there are mini-assignments throughout (see the list above) that work to teach the student strategies that good writers use. To accomplish this, student might work on grammar, spelling, vocabulary, brainstorming, or editing in the course of the mini-assignments throughout any given model. These all come together with the main piece of work being edited in small, bite-sized pieces. These bits are so small, the student doesn’t even necessarily realize how much change is occurring in their piece as they work on it. Sometimes, these mini-assignments do not have anything to do with the piece for the unit. Sometimes, they are breaks from that writing. It all works together seamlessly.

There is a schedule in the front of the student text to help you plan out the work for this program. We are not following it because, honestly, Miss L likes to work on this and is moving a bit faster than the pacing in the book. I have found it to be easy as pie to just work at the pace the student is setting.

Writers in Residence quickly became a favorite part of the school day for Miss L. She works hard at the assignments and enjoys writing. She seems to be enjoying learning how to be a better writer and seeing the instruction add to her abilities. Her first piece of writing that she finalized using WIR was published on the blog a couple of weeks ago. Please go read When I Was Younger to see how the first unit piece came out for her.

There is much to really like about Writers in Residence . If you are looking for a writing program, I highly recommend checking out Apologia Educational Ministries and read more review from the Review Crew by clicking on the banner below.

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The Giving Tree – book unit

We had so much fun with The Giving Tree. It is such a rich, deep book and there are so many opportunities to extend learning. Without further ado, here is the unit that we enjoyed.

Questions/Discussion of Ideas:

• What is the main idea? Give examples and support your response.
• Discuss the idea of giving all you can and all you have to one you love. What might this look like for a human? Is it good or bad? What are the implications of this?
• God’s perspective: He gave all! Why? What did that look like? What did that do for us?
• Our perspective: What do we give to God? What do we give to others?

Writing:

• Write a tree poem.
• Write a shape poem using a tree form.
• For older students, write a persuasive essay about why you should or should not give all you have to one you love.
• Rewrite the story or a scene from the story from the tree’s perspective.
• Utilize vocabulary from the book or learn vocabulary relating to trees and plants. We did the later using worksheets from Super Teacher Worksheets. (See our review of them here.)
• Write sentences. You could use vocabulary you choose from the book or write sentences using vocabulary related to trees. We did the later and J used a cutting page from Super Teacher Worksheets relating to plants and trees and their growth.

Science:

• A tree unit is a natural outgrowth of from this book.
• Learn the parts of a tree. We used a printable we found online. (The site it was from is no longer a valid address, evidently, so I can’t share that with you.) We glued it to magnet pieces and cut it out. (We used old refrigerator magnets from companies that we get in the mail. I save them for things like this. They are thin and easy to cut with scissors.) Then J matched up the parts of a tree on the white board.
• Learn about the uses of trees. We researched and discussed the many different ways trees can be used – building, furniture, fuel, recreation, hobbies, etc.
• Learn about the growth of trees.
• Visit a museum about trees or your local Forest Service station. We visited a museum that had a small exhibit about trees. If your museum had a large tree section with the rings visible and marked, it is really interesting.
• Talk about the season and how the season affect trees and their growth.
• Learn about different types of trees and leaves. We used a set of posters from the Forest Service to study various trees and leaves, as well as animals that live among the forest trees.
• Learn about managing growing things and resources. Learn more about how the forests are managed.
• Discuss wildfires and forest fires. Discuss their impacts on not only the forest and the animals that live there, but the people, their property, and the larger environmental changes that happen because of forest fires. We viewed pictures of forest fires, including the Little Bear Fire that affected a place near and dear to us a couple of years ago. We have talked about changes because of that fire and what the effects of that were.

History:

• If you visit a museum that has a huge tree ring, you could study the events marked through the rings.
• Study the history of the Forest Service.
• Research one of the National Parks or Monuments. Find out about why someone chose that particular section of natural resources and forests to preserve.

Art:

• Use water color crayons to create a picture of a tree.
• Use colored pencils to draw a tree showing the various parts. I found this post from The Inspired Classroom which was super helpful.
• Make a canvas set that shows the various seasons of the year and how they impact a tree. See our project here.

Bible:

• Memorize Psalm 1. We memorized this passage a while back but we went back and reviewed it several times during this study.
• Matthew 12:33 “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.” – Discuss this and how this is seen in real life. Apply this to the lives of the students. Have students create motions and movement to help them memorize this verse. Apply this verse to the Giving Tree and have students give concrete examples of why they chose which kind of tree the Giving Tree was.

Extensions:

• Create a paper tree with the different parts of the story. Attach magnets to the back and use it for retelling the story. You can make your own or print a copy of this one that I made for J.
  Giving Tree play pieces page 1
  Giving Tree play pieces page 2
• Watch a video of this book. There is one we found on YouTube of Shel Silverstein telling it. It was interesting for the girls to see the author and to hear his voice. It was nothing like we expected. Just do a search on YouTube and it should come up without any trouble.
• Watch a video of the book being told in sign language. Two of the girls are studying sign language so that was a fun thing for us to see. We also watched a video of a young boy and girl with their mother retelling the story. The girls learned a lot of signs from watching these two youngsters. There are many versions of the story on YouTube so find something fun that will appeal to your students.
• Take a field trip to visit a museum that has a big tree section with rings that go back hundreds of years. Or go to a tree farm. Or just go to a forest and walk around, observing all that you can about the trees.

I tried to keep this one shorter so if I did too short of a job on the description for something you want to know more about, leave me a comment and I’ll try to give you more information. Most of all, though, the Giving Tree was a fantastic unit that just kept growing and growing from the interest the girls had in it. Enjoy!

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