Super and Simple Primary Grades (Creative) Writing

Do you sometimes wonder what assignments to give your younger students for writing? After all, they are just starting to gain proficiency in doing handwriting and spelling, and if you tell them to "write a story" they may look up at you with a blank stare.

But, on the other hand, asking them to "tell" you a story will probably produce a lot of imaginative ramblings.

What I found worked the best in our own homeschool was to give a topic (so there is something to focus the creative energy toward), and listen to my 1st or 2nd grader tell about it while writing down the words.  Then, over several days, the young student would copy his own story over, using nice penmanship.

I set up a whole series of topics, so it was easy to just pick the next one after finishing a writing piece.

And now, this extensive list of topics is part of a small ebook about how to teach writing in the primary grades.

There are some other creative writing ideas, too, and a writing journal template printable. These ideas are for 1st and 2nd graders, PLUS a section for 3rd graders. There are some sample pages up on the Gentle Shepherd website, HERE.

So if you're looking for an easy-to-use creative writing program that gives great results and can bring much joy to both the creators and to you, this small idea ebook may be just what you're looking for . . .

Dragon . . . Fly

What? Do dragons fly? Well, maybe some of them do . . . 

But this is actually a compound word, for beginning writers to copy (writing in the space below the letters) when they are beginning to learn to write -- all in capital letters. 

This page is from Easy Peasy Penmanship, an ebook with 141 different printable pages, all in capital letters. Children who are 4-5 years old are usually ready to start with these kind of penmanship pages.

You can see some samples of other pages from this ebook athttp://www.gentleshepcurr.com/easy-peasy-penmanship.html

Word Box Writing

Word Box Writing . . .
The way this works, there are six words in a box, that are kind of related -- for example, "cactus, desert, sand, water, lizard, prickly." Below the word box are some lines for writing, to write 4 sentences using all six words.

This takes some thinking! You can't just write one sentence with each word; some of the sentences will have to have more than one. . .

So what is the purpose of all this?

Well, number one is to have some fun doing writing.
Then also, there is the thinking part . . . and kids might like to use the words in the box as story starters, sometimes.

Would you like to see what these printable work pages look like? Take a look here: http://www.gentleshepcurr.com/word-box-writing.html

Fact Hunts! for research

I always looked forward to "Fact Hunt" day when teaching my kids, because of two things-- first, I knew it was an open-ended, interesting assignment that they would enjoy, and second, I would get to read the facts they collected and enjoy looking over the info; sometimes "ordinary" and sometimes very unusual.

We usually did this assignment once a week, with kids who were in middle school.  They would take a certain topic-- for example, "citrus fruits"-- and use whatever sources they wanted (since modern times and the internet this has always been online searches, but some of our oldest kids did use books back in the day . . .), making a list of 10 facts about the topic.

There were no requirements other than finding 10 facts-- they didn't have to write complete sentences, or find any certain types of things.  The whole idea was just to give them a short research project, to get them used to the process of doing "research."  (You know, the kind of thing you need to be doing when you're writing reports and research papers, and also just learning in general.)

To keep time and a schedule from getting in the way of just enjoying the assignment, the kids would do the fact hunt as the last thing in their morning schoolwork . . . so if it took them a few minutes longer or shorter, there were no worries or pressure.

Since this was one of our most favorite writing projects to do, I wanted to make a short ebook about it, with lists of suggestions for topics.  So now, (drumroll, please) a "Fact Hunts" ebook is ready!  And even more awesome, it is also a freebie, available to anyone on our website.

Here is what the cover looks like; there are 12 pages total, with ideas given for 4 years of fact hunts.

Come and see! Please download and try these out, if this sounds like something you might like to include in your homeschool.  And also, please share the freebies page link (but not the ebook itself; we'd like people to be downloading it from the website) and let your friends know about this research writing resource!