What can I say about writing? I personally have a love/hate relationship with it. When I have time to think clearly, be humorous, add style and entertain people… I love to write! But these days, I don’t have time for all that. I update this blog quickly, just so I don’t forget things. It’s far from entertaining anymore. It reminds me of a checklist. And that, I hate!
But I do like to teach writing skills. With a first and third grader, we are still doing a lot of basics. Savannah has very neat handwriting and so for her, I assign a lot of journaling and some copywork. She told me once when she was quite small that she wanted to be an author some day. She’s never mentioned it again, but gosh, does she love to write stuff! She fills up notebook after notebook with her thoughts and drawings and ideas and to do lists (I have NO IDEA where she gets THAT from!). On a normal school day, I have to continually remind her that she’s done enough writing for that day and she needs to move on to her other work or it will never get done!
Emery hasn’t been as eager to write as his sister. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s getting older or if she is rubbing off on him, but he isn’t as frustrated by it as he used to be. Neatness and taking pride in his handwriting is something I’m trying to develop in him. “It’s not just all about getting the assignment finished, son.” At the beginning of this year I hesitated to teach him cursive even though he was asking. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it, but I could barely read his printing. I thought cursive would be even worse! Now I’m glad that I decided to go ahead and do it. Turns out, if it’s something he sincerely wants to learn, he will do what it takes to do it right.
I don’t know why this picture is so blurry. Knowing him, he probably wasn’t sitting still! The page was taken from his writing book called Writing with Ease (Savannah also uses the 3rd grade edition). These books have been great in reinforcing copy work, comprehension skills, and story narration. We do a lot of work finding the main points of stories and then condensing those stories in our own words. This is difficult because for Savannah, she wants to retell the story in complete detail including the color of flower petals that the main character passed on her way to the farmhouse. And Emery, knowing that whatever he narrates back to me about the story, I will write down and he will have to copy, gives me only 4 and 5 word recaps! (sigh)
But overall, I can already see a huge improvement in both their handwriting and their writing skills in general since the beginning of this school year. I am really looking forward to next year when Savannah will be old enough to participate in the Essentials Writing class that is offered within our homeschool group. I hear nothing but praise about it and I think with the program we’ve been using, she will have confidence in herself and will do very well in the class.
