FREEbie: Free Homeschooling Literary Ezine (Submissions Wanted!) Ages 8-18

I am on the lookout for freebies wherever I can spot them to give them to you~I KNOW how hard it is in this economy and on one income to get everything to make homeschooling our kiddos the best~it's pricey out there sometimes!!!~soo I have that cool little tab at the top of the header, and I invite you to ck out the FREEbie/GiveAways button!~

AND...


I am a member of Clickschooling who sends out a freebie everyday on various subjects~
Today she said,

Age Range: 8-18 (approximately)
The owner of this website contacted me and said:
"Our company, WriteGuide.com, is sponsoring a free, online literary magazine for homeschoolers, called the Homeschool Literary Quarterly. The magazine will showcase student work, and will celebrate homeschool writing.
At this point in the project, we're accepting student submissions for the Winter/Christmas edition. The deadline is November 15th. Might you be able to share this information with your readership?"
I'm always happy to share information that provides free educational content and opportunities for members of ClickSchooling. This is a new project and they need your participation to make it work.
When you get to the site, you'll see the foundation for what could be a terrific online resource with the potential to fulfill the stated purpose to:

1. Promote the literary arts within the homeschool community.
2. Provide a place where homeschool writers can showcase their work, and receive intelligent commentary from readers.
3. Assist homeschoolers who are considering a career in publishing or writing.

The will accept a variety of writing content including:

• Fiction - Short stories and excerpts from novels.
• Poetry - Free verse, blank verse, sonnets, haiku, and prose-poems.
• Non-Fiction - Memoirs, essays, book reviews, and interviews.

Again, there isn't any content yet - but your kids' work could be featured in the Christmas/Winter edition! (BRAND NEW Aug. 2010)  You'll find the guidelines for how to submit writing along with more information and details at the website.
Having an opportunity to get their work published, might be just the motivation some kids need to hone their writing skills!
Enjoy!

Here's the link:
Homeschool Literary Quarterly

To recieve a FREE homeschooling curriculum idea DAILY~Clickschooling!
Now who doesn't LOVE a freebie??? Blessings!

Teaching the Young Child to Write~Creatively!

When my children were younger, one method I used to bud the creativity in them in their writing is an idea that my friend, Julie gave me.  She had written a guide to writing with the emphasis on enlisting a love for writing within the child's heart first by journal writing each day and systematically teaching editing and the grammar rules as the child journals.  The secret "arsenal" was to have the child write in the journal each day of school, but only weekly to "conference" with the child about his writing.  This was not a critical feast of condemning the child's efforts, but one where the parent/teacher reads with interest and support, validation picking only ONE error to focus upon.  Just ONE! Now this was hard for me initially, but in seeing this method work, the child is not discouraged by hearing how so much is wrong, but that their flow of creative ideas is wonderful, GREAT, and accepted!

When our children were encouraged to write in the manner, they wrote creative stories and accounts of things that they thought without the struggles of the "mechanics" if you will allow me to call it that~the FREE-FLOW of IDEAS is what's most important in the developing thinker and writer . . .

Even the youngest child who has learned to form his letters and write simple sentences through copy work can journal each day.  If your child isn't able to write many sentences independently, then assign ONE each day . . . My son wrote, "I love a cat; I have a cat; My cat is Tiger." You can get the idea that it was a incremental process that TOOK TIME!

Just as  it takes time for a child to learn to read, it will take time for your little to write and write well!

For the very young child, you can "scribe" for him until he is able to write his sentence independently.  Use a journal.  Let your child pick out his own style and color~his preference! I love the Dollar Tree for having these so affordable and often they are so unique! My son's had a frog on it in the shape of a frog!!  Scribe and then have him copy~but don't overwhelm.

Please see the bigger picture that your child is growing and WILL get it!

Our family is proof of this! I have posted our current writing methods/processes
Strategy I


Planning Past the EvalsStrategy 3
Playing Our Way to Writing! and you can see we are well beyond my scribing and the one sentence journal method.

Play some games to encourage language development!

Games for the Young Child:

1. Sentence starters are great. Make up your own (as simple as your child needs it to be . . .)
2. Finish the story: writing game.  Have your children around the table. Start with one line, something like: "There once was . . ." OR "Once upon a time, there was . . ." OR "Hello said the little kitten to . . ." Of course change the kitten to whichever animal your child adores. Is it his dog or a bunny or turtle? ;-)) Make it fun! And then each child and yourself will take a turn adding a word! Allow yourself to write them as you go around, OR pass a sheet of paper for older children. For a fun, fast passed game, do sentences.  Pass this with the olders and they will giggle, get silly and soo creative!
3. Give your child a picture.  Have him tell you what he sees.  You can write it down on his appropriate age level lined paper every other line so now it becomes copy-work, which will reinforce not only what the thought and what was said, but also strengthen those fine motor skills in the mechanics of physcal writing as well as demonstrate just how sentence properly are put together (grammar.)

I hope you will find these methods incouraging and helpful.  Remember like reading, the ability to write is one that takes incramental practice over years to develop.

The biggest goal at a young age is to foster the thinking, creative mind! 

Writing for successful writers!

Writing Strategy #4 Playing Our Way to Writing!

It's been a long haul over the years.  While we are in high school, I realize that some of you are in different places in the journey of homeschooling.  I hope my honest discussion of this struggle will be a comfort for you if you are struggling or insecure, and for those just starting out, I hope you find encouragement and some ideas you can use as well. 

The age of your child certainly will dictate some of what you will and won't try.  But this one idea is certain, keep trying! Another is to keep it as much fun as possible.  My boy will tell you that I am not fun! But in my humble defense, I have tried to keep it fun~but remember this is an area of weakness and none of us likes hitting on a "soft spot" of which this Mama has done for all these years now...so I really don't expect him to think I am fun or to thank me right now~BUT I am looking ahead...to days when he will...when he can function and do well at life~literate and educated! It would be sooo easy to take the tact of saying, "awww, he's not 'college material' and "well, he is so hands on~we just didn't push"...or even, "shop activities were his thing, we just let the other stuff slide..."  Please hear me on this: I am sure I will have hit a nerve in my opinion I am giving, but my reasons are thus: We MUST educate our children! The education we give has to be encompassing to a place that it brinks to the top of their abilities.  This is a tall order I know...but I encourage you to consider your child's life without the ability to effectively communicate on paper the written words he may need to convey as an adult in a writing society...Yes, history does document the excellence of writing in our society~just read our founders and those who were educated throughout the centuries! OK...so I've said it~let's educate our strugglers and all our littles to excellence! NOW on to some fun ideas:

1. Play some games~what have you got? Scrabble, Boggle, Wheel of Fortune, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Trivial Pursuit? We even like Monopoly and Uno for strategy as well as card games...but the word and knowledge based games are so useful...Chess...checkers...play play play!

2. For basic skills in phonics, I devised a simple game for my hands on learner...he was in kindergarten at the time and learning vowel sounds and blends...I made flash cards out of file cards and putting them in a random pattern on the floor, he hopped while making the sounds.  He liked it and it helped him learn them.

3. Writing games~story starters is a fun way...take out a sheet of notebook paper or for your young child, you be the scribe so the emphasis is on the ideas not all the skills associated with writing all at once...begin the story with a made up statement that needs an ending: "There was a kitty who..." and let your child finish...Then you can go onward to expand the story.  Once you have a short nice story, you can have your child use this story as copy work.  A method for this is to scribe your child's thoughts on his age level appropriate writing paper every other line...the second line is for his copywork right below yours.  Remember to model beautiful writing for him, printed properly in a style that fits with good sound instruction.  You must model what you desire in your learner ;-))  This is so true in all of our lives with our children!  So with this said, you can also have him illustrate the story as well.  This gives great extensions to your child's story and creative efforts!

4. Journaling is another great way to write everyday that will bring composing together with mechanics.  Funny that we began trying to journal long before he was ready...I got short snippet sentences like: "I love a cat." I have a cat." My cat is good."  But eventually through praise and then requiring a number of sentences I KNEW he could write, and numbers of words I knew he could use, I encouraged him and REQUIRED longer sentences: My instructions: Write five sentences five words each.  Each sentence is about something different.  These were after quite a while of continuing to teach sentence writing and scribing his ideas and him doing copywork.    It's a process, and I used loads of praise and reward for his hard work! In fact, today I STILL tell him ALL the wonderful things he has done in excellence FIRST before I EVER share any corrections that need to be made...I know that he has worked sooo hard...soooo diligent...and I want him to KNOW that I know and value his efforts!!! Convey this to your learner too! Don't we all go a little further when we feel loved and valued for our efforts??! 

5. Silly Songs~does your child like music? Make up silly sentence songs to tunes you know or tunes you can make up~Have fun! MAKE it fun! The hard part will come later when it's essay writing time and the steps are in place so that an essay will form.  This is where we are today...and why I have posted my incramental instructions that I am giving each day to get an essay a week...

Remember that writing is truly a process.  One thing I learned in college is that editing is what will make a writer's work excel, but the one thing I learned about writing from life is that a true writer or a natural writer will just write, because "writer's write!" I have a natural writer who writes up a storm and then I have a reluctant writer, but both are becoming capable writers~effective and prepared...it's a process of becoming~even with such  as skill as writing!

Play on towards writing~teaching your child toward excellence and being educated!

The 3 R's are some of the most important academic work we will do as homeschoolers with our children.  Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic are essential foundations to all the other disciplines.

It's my personal challenge to bring a child with learning issues to a place of competency in the area of language.  Raising a child with language learning deficits where speaking wasn't the only challenge, reading and writing have been huge as well.  I read and used all sorts of materials to make progress; there's been professional testing and interventions too! We turned every stone possible to understand our child and the challenges.  It's not been easy, and often the desire to throw up my hands in defeat have consumed me.  The challenge is not mine alone, as he must recognize it and battle to become all he can become!  He must become successful to compete in this world.  My child has made tremendous strides in the past year plus! He is writing essays, while not where I would like to see him, he is putting down ideas on paper and learning the fine points of grammar and organization.  Because of the difficulties, he is easily frustrated and becomes resistant.  I want to share some of the strategy I have developed for him with the help of a dear teacher friend of mine who is in special education.  She has been a wonderful sideline supporter of me and my children, an ear and friend~a sister/coolest aunt ever in our hearts! Thanks, my friend for loving us!

What are you doing to help your child? Do you have challenges that are puzzling? I'd love to hear.
blessings,

Creative Writing~Freebie Novel Writing PDF Download

I am ALWAYS looking for ideas on how to teach mine how to write. It's just one of those skills that's essential for life much less any college work they may want to undertake. This is an area that freaks me too~so much so I have researched and read as much as I can about the subject so that I can teach them well. Living on a budget has meant that I can't necessarily afford what I might purchase had I more funds, so I keep on looking, researching and learning myself. Today, Homeschool Freebie of the Day offered a PDF download for a 25 page guide to teach children, I am guessing around 3 or 4th grades up to write a novel from the Little Blue School http://www.littleblueschool.com/ who had a writing club for her children and friends. AWESOME! Now you can along with me join in the fun! I love to write; I was in the sixth grade when I wrote a "book!" I wish I still had it, but through the years it has disappeared. These are treasures for our children and their childhood memories.

blessings on your writing pursuits and go get that download http://www.littleblueschool.com/ !