Category Archives: Writer’s Workshop
Writin’ With the Irish
Here are a few fun writing ideas for some St. Patrick’s Day fun: Imagine you found a lucky four-leaf clover that will bring you great luck for only one day. Write about your perfect lucky day. At Christmas time, Valentine’s … Continue reading
Palindromes
As part of our writer’s workshop I often (almost daily) give little mini-lessons. I love doing ones that involve wordplay. Palindromes are words (or phrases) that are the same right to left as from left to right. Here are a … Continue reading
Courage, War, and Freedom
I read this quote the other day and it made me think that maybe all of us take our freedoms for granted a bit too much: Read and discuss the quote with your older children. Here are a few essay … Continue reading
The Lion-Makers, a Story From the Panchatantra
The Panchatantra is a collection of ancient stories from India that were written down more than two thousand years ago, though the stories themselves are much older than that. They are the first fables ever told in the world. They’re … Continue reading
A Grammar Sequence Checklist
Karen gives her kids mini-grammar/language/literature lessons nearly every day as a routine part of school. She does this just out of the blue and out of her head as she notices problems with her kids writing or feels they’re ready … Continue reading
An Assisted Acrostic
Garrett did his book project on Winter: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur. Garrett wrote and illustrated his own acrostic poem. He chose the “I, for Igloo” page as his beginning point, but wrote his own poem to go with it. That … Continue reading
Authentic Writing Experiences
Recently the Layers of Learning kids entered a Lego contest about renewable energy, and we won the grand prize!! More about that later, but today I wanted to share an authentic writing experience my son had because of it. When … Continue reading
Scavenger Hunt Stories
To go on a scavenger hunt you begin with a list of items and search them out as quickly as possible. This writing assignment takes you on a search in your own mind instead of in the physical world. For … Continue reading
Fish Boy: A Story By Tyler
We’ve been writing a lot of stories lately in our writer’s workshop. We’ve been focusing on using interesting, unfamiliar characters and describing them well so our readers can picture them. I’m going to take you through each of the steps … Continue reading
Silly Similes
Teaching similes can be BORING when you’re just using the same, old boring similes we all know. Bruce Lansky wrote a poem about them called “Predictable”: Poor as a church mouse,Strong as an ox,Cute as a button,Smart as a fox. … Continue reading
Double Setting Box
Recently I had both of my big kids make double setting boxes for a book project. They learned what the setting in a story is, and then when they read a book from one of our favorite young reader series, the … Continue reading
Twice Upon A Time Tales
Whenever possible I try to dovetail our reading and writing together into one cohesive lesson. Of course, the obvious way to do this is simply to have kids write about what they’re reading. Twice Upon A Time Tales are just … Continue reading
Sausage Poems
Sausage poems are fun to write and can be a really great challenge too, so get ready to use your brains. At first glance you think they’re going to be easy, but it’s quite the workout for your brain! They … Continue reading
Just Who Was Dr. Seuss?
Dr. Seuss was truly an author like no other, and today we take off our hats to him and wish him a very happy birthday. Before Dr. Seuss, the world of children’s literature was bland . . . colorless. In … Continue reading
Writing Great Sentences
Whether you’re working with a first grader or a high school student kids can always use a bit of help writing really effective sentences. It’s not easy to be both clear and interesting at the same time. In fact many of the … Continue reading
Sleeping Beauty
Fairy Tales can be a great jumping off place for meeting educational goals with your kids. Begin by telling the kids the story of Sleeping Beauty. There are many great versions out there. For a basic and complete anthology of … Continue reading
Spelling Stories and Sign Language
I use words my kids have misspelled in their writing as their spelling words for the week. I quickly look through their writer’s notebooks and find useful, but misspelled words and write them on a list. We practice them in a variety of fun … Continue reading
The Knights, A Greek Comedy
The Greeks wrote really cool plays, almost everybody knows that. But almost nobody has read them. That’s too bad, because they are really awesomely good. We tend to think of the Greeks as big time intellectuals and some of them … Continue reading
Winter Acrostic Poems
Acrostic poems are a fun and easy way to introduce kids to writing their own poetry. Fitting with the theme of the year, try some using Winter or Christmas words. To begin write the word you want to focus on, like … Continue reading
Writing Letters To Santa
Getting kids to write this week should be easy! It’s the perfect time of year to send letters to Santa, and it shouldn’t be too hard to get little ones motivated to finish this writing assignment. Make sure their letters … Continue reading
Superstitions
Superstitions are interesting things because they are believed in so widely, and yet are not based on fact or reason. It can be difficult to get people to believe in reasonable, factual things, and yet–it is very easy to get … Continue reading
Native American Legends
Every people has an ancient oral literary history. Usually these tales, passed down from one generation to the next by professional story tellers, are magical and mystical in nature, besides teaching the values and mores of a society. In North America there … Continue reading
Writing Newspaper Articles
Teaching kids to write newspaper articles is an important skill. Articles are written in a concise, descriptive way. A lot of information is given with very few words, so the words need to be thoughtful and succinct. First, have the kids … Continue reading
Things That Are Most Creative Writing
I just love this idea posted by Kathy on her Art Projects For Kids site. I’m one of her devoted and constantly amazed followers. She’s full of great ideas and inspiration on fun art to do with kids. This is … Continue reading
Travel Brochure
Travel brochures are a great way for kids to record information about neat places around the world. With the internet it’s really easy to find travel information, but it’s still more fun to go find a travel agency. They have … Continue reading
Book Report Cards
Kids are always the ones getting the grades; it’s time to turn the tables and let them do the grading. This printable form is a book report card. Instead of a typical book report, kids can fill out the report … Continue reading
Character Wanted Posters
WANTED posters make terrific character sketches (even if your character isn’t a bandit or a criminal-type!). Kids get a chance to write a description of both the appearance and personality of their character. They also write where you might expect … Continue reading
Making The Case For D.O.L.
Did you grow up doing D.O.L.?? (I did!) D.O.L. just stands for daily oral language. The basic procedure is taking a sentence that is full of errors and asking kids to find and correct all the errors in it. Then … Continue reading
The Five W’s
We’re all terrified of diagramming sentences, but it doesn’t have to be so frightening. There’s more than one way to do it too. You may be diagramming for parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc.), or for finding the subject … Continue reading
A Day in our Writer’s Workshop
I got a request asking me to tell what a day is like in our writer’s workshop, so here goes!First off–a couple of disclaimers:1. My writers are ages 9 and 7, so they are both still in the emergent stage. … Continue reading
Kids Need A Publisher Too
One huge obstacle for emergent writer’s is their trouble with basic conventions. Spelling, handwriting, and punctuation tend to get in the way of their great stories. That is one really important reason that revising and editing are 2 separate steps … Continue reading
Response Writing
Often when we teach writing we discuss the writing process: 1. Planning or pre-writing 2. Drafting 3. Revising 4. Editing 5. Publishing This process is extremely important, but as with most things, there is a time for it, and a … Continue reading
What Would Happen If….Writing Prompts
I try to spend time writing along with my kids, and even with lots of years of practice and life experience behind me, I still have those days when I feel like there’s just nothing to write about. Inspiration dries … Continue reading
Pairing Fiction and Non-Fiction Books
I love pairing fiction with non-fiction books when I read to my kids. I usually start by reading the fiction book. For example, “Frog and Toad Are Friends” is a classic tale of two silly friends who converse and have … Continue reading
Book Project: Book Reviews
Unlike most of the book projects we suggest, this particular one will work for any book, and for almost any age, elementary through high school and even beyond. Choose any book you’ve read and write a book review on it. … Continue reading
Five Paragraph Essays
There’s nothing magical about five paragraph essays, either in the length or in the exact structure, but they are an excellent start to learning to write more developed essays for middle-schoolers and above. Before you begin teaching the five paragraph … Continue reading
Play "Finish That Rhyme!"
Playing with words is the start of a great poet. Sometimes kids get bogged down in poetry assignments, so I do my best to keep them simple, light, and fun. To teach about rhyme, first show them how it’s done. … Continue reading
History Combined with Family History
As our history studies approach more modern times, it’s been awesome to bring some of it to life with stories from our own family’s history. My last living grandfather fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and though it’s still … Continue reading
Creative Writing: 2 Points of View
One neat writing technique is writing from a different point of view. I often hear of the standard assignment to write as though you are an inanimate object (like a pencil or a plant) to teach kids to write from … Continue reading
Biographical Sketch
You may want your child to learn about a famous person from history, but not need a full blown report about them. In that case do a biographical sketch. A biographical sketch can be completed in about an hour or … Continue reading
Teaching Kids to Write Their First Reports
Writing a report for a youngster can seem like an overwhelming task. It’s quite a PROCESS by the time you go from choosing a topic to researching, from organizing to drafting, and finally from editing and revising to ending up … Continue reading
Writer’s Workshop Basics
Every day we have writer’s workshop. It’s simply time that’s designated for whatever writing projects we have going on at the time. Sometimes this includes specific things that I’ve assigned (like this week my kids have been working on biographies … Continue reading
Creating Brochures
Creating brochures is a perfect opportunity for kids to combine a bit of history, geography, writing, and art all in one shot. It’s a perfect project for any age because it can be super simple (pictures wuth just a few … Continue reading
Teaching Tall Tales
Teaching tall tales to kids is really fun because it’s one time that you get to encourage lying!! Tall tales have been around for centuries, but they really became popular in the early 1800′s in America. They are sometimes called … Continue reading
Four Square Writing Method
The four square writing method is a simple format for helping kids to expand upon their writing, add details, and stay organized. So many young writers struggle to develop well-written stories, essays, and descriptions. This method utilizes a simple graphical … Continue reading
Making Spelling Fun
My kids get so sick of practicing their spelling words all the time, so we try to throw in some fun to kick the practicing up a notch. Here are a few ways to change spelling up a bit: Write … Continue reading
Sayings and Phrases
Teaching kids the meanings of common phrases and sayings can be really fun (and funny sometimes too!). We generally have a saying of the week. This week we are doing “A fish out of water.” I always write the saying … Continue reading
Using Your 5 Senses To Write
Writing descriptively can be challenging for budding authors. Try suggesting they add in details using their 5 senses. For example, you could ask them to write about what autumn is like and they will probably struggle and come up with … Continue reading
Time Travel Creative Writing
Where would you go if you go travel anywhere, anytime in the history of the world? Even really young kids know the difference between now and “life in the olden days.” Have your kids pretend they have a time machine … Continue reading
Creative Writing With Kids
Assigning kids to do creative writing always seems like a good idea to adults, but it can be daunting for emergent writers. Some kids will take right off with a story on their own, but most need some kind of … Continue reading
African Folk Tales
Folk tales are a great way to learn more about a culture from either a historical or modern perspective. Here’s a project using an African folk tale from Nigeria, called Anansi and Turtle. It’s a moral tale somewhat like Aesop’s … Continue reading
Create-A-Creature
Playing with words is an important element of writing. This can be an especially fun activity near the beginning of poetry studies. My kindergartner and 2nd grader came up with as many as I did, so it’s truly an activity … Continue reading
Writing To Authors
Teaching kids to write letters is such an invaluable skill. It really can’t be done enough. Later this will translate into their ability to write professionally; they will use these skills to write cover letters for resumes, business letters, memos, … Continue reading
Homemade Books
Kids are interested in themselves. They like their own ideas. They like their own drawings. They are impressed by their own writing. My son does not enjoy writing exercises. He does not enjoy readers. He does enjoy making his own … Continue reading
