my daughter will be 8 years old the first week in october. she isn't great with composition, and honestly, until this school year - i've not worked with her a lot or had expectations. i don't want writing to feel like a chore for her, but rather, i want it to be something she enjoys. she doesn't want assignments or journal entries....so in trying to figure out an enjoyable option, i found this at ami's blog (creator of homeschool share) and had to share: http://www.walkingbytheway.com/blog/?p=360
in a nutshell, you have several ideas on strips of paper to write about (chocolate for lunch, my day with a dinosaur, birthday bash, the hidden door, etc)... or your child can make up their own title. then you roll one die and whatever number it lands on is how many words you need to start the story (ex: my dd rolls a 6 & writes, "once upon a time in a..."). then i roll & write however many words to add to her sentence. it looks something like this (2 colors represent 2 people):
chocolate for lunch
once upon a time, a cat named Sassy lived in an apartment. A dog named Jake smelled her food and it was tuna fish. Wow, it smells like chocolate tuna fish! A mouse also smelled the chocolate fish. She licked it and smiled because it tasted so good! "Fish! Yummy chocolate fish!", she said. A snake liked chocolate fish too, and slithered into the apartment. The cat got angry! Hey, what is everyone doing in my food dish!
anyway - you get the idea. my daughter wrote more with this activity than she ever has. she LOVED it and had no idea she was learning. this focused on handwriting, grammar, and creative writing, etc.
she especially enjoyed us doing it alongside one another. we wrote 5 pages!!! it was so much fun.
anyway, i hope this benefits someone else with a reluctant writer. i purchased peggy kaye's book a while ago and can't wait to incorporate more fun!!!
hth.
in a nutshell, you have several ideas on strips of paper to write about (chocolate for lunch, my day with a dinosaur, birthday bash, the hidden door, etc)... or your child can make up their own title. then you roll one die and whatever number it lands on is how many words you need to start the story (ex: my dd rolls a 6 & writes, "once upon a time in a..."). then i roll & write however many words to add to her sentence. it looks something like this (2 colors represent 2 people):
chocolate for lunch
once upon a time, a cat named Sassy lived in an apartment. A dog named Jake smelled her food and it was tuna fish. Wow, it smells like chocolate tuna fish! A mouse also smelled the chocolate fish. She licked it and smiled because it tasted so good! "Fish! Yummy chocolate fish!", she said. A snake liked chocolate fish too, and slithered into the apartment. The cat got angry! Hey, what is everyone doing in my food dish!
anyway - you get the idea. my daughter wrote more with this activity than she ever has. she LOVED it and had no idea she was learning. this focused on handwriting, grammar, and creative writing, etc.
she especially enjoyed us doing it alongside one another. we wrote 5 pages!!! it was so much fun.
anyway, i hope this benefits someone else with a reluctant writer. i purchased peggy kaye's book a while ago and can't wait to incorporate more fun!!!
hth.
My kids aren't really reluctant, but I know they would love doing this anyway, with me and with each other
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