Remember the Field Trip Journals?  We're still using them this year and I couldn't be happier with them.  They are proving to make great writing assignments, and I'm finding the kids absolutely love looking through them for the memories.  I love to watch the kids sort through brochures, ticket stubs and pictures trying to decide what to include and how to organize the memories.  They're going to make wonderful keepsakes!

Here's #2 of 4 Question Box topics from co-op this week.....

Creative Writing Ideas

I've written a few blog posts in the past about writing that you can find here. 

Here are some great online resources, too.

Teacher's Desk

Can Teach

Creative Composition Without Handwriting

Ten Creative Writing Ideas

Very Unique and Interactive Ideas

Homeschool Learning - scroll down for some lesson ideas

And these ideas came from some of the ladies at co-op:

-Don't hinder a poor writer with writing their own stories.  Let them narrate their stories to you or tape record their stories, or even type them if they are good typers. 

-Playing instrumental music while writing can spark creativity.

-Ask your children to act out a story, then write it.

-Draw a setting and then add the story.

-Write in small spurts.  Maybe develop characters one day, then develop the setting, decide on the conflict - eventually put all the elements together into a rich story.

-Do back and forth stories to develop detail.  The child or parent starts telling a story, when they break off suddenly, the other person has to continue the story.  This can go back or forth as many times as you like. 

-Buy and Illustory set to encourage completing a really well-written story.

Here are some ideas for a scavenger hunt at the library.  Questions can easily be altered for younger or older children.  This was planned for my 5th grader and it will probably take a couple trips to finish.  (By the way, the librarians will love you for this!)  :) 

If you'd rather see the printable version, it's located here.

Library Scavenger Hunt

How long may books be checked out from the library?

How long may DVD’s be check out of the library?

Use the computer catalog to search for a book about horses, Daniel Boone and New Zealand. After finding the books, write the title, author and Dewey Decimal numbers for each book.

What’s the difference between a book labeled with an E and a book labeled with a J?

What does JB stand for? And how could you find a book on Abraham Lincoln without using the catalog?

What is the charge for an overdue library book?

What is the charge for an overdue DVD?

Find the section of books about medieval times. What are the Dewey Decimal numbers?

Find a Newberry Award book. Give its title, author and Dewey Decimal numbers.

Find a Caldecott Award book. Give its title, author and Dewey Decimal numbers.

Name two magazines your library carries that interest you.

What’s the difference between a book labeled J Blum and J 545.23?

Find a book about an artist. Give its title, author and Dewey Decimal numbers. 

Find a fairy tale. Give its title author and Dewy Decimal numbers.

Locate a book about China. From the book, write the page number you find each of the following.

  Title page -

  Copyright -

  Table of contents -

  Index -

Locate a book from the Juvenile Fiction section. Find the following information and put a check beside each after showing your mom.

  Book description -

  Introduction -

  Dedication -

  Author description -

  Illustrator description -

What can you do if your library doesn’t carry a book you really want to check out?

Does the library offer books on tape or books on CD for children? Name one you would be interested in listening to.

What does your librarian like most about her job?

What does she like least about her job?

What are some of her responsibilities?

What opportunities are available for a young volunteer at the library?

Find out the title, date and time of one special event the library is offering soon.

Where does money come from to buy books for the library?

What happens to books and magazines when the library doesn’t use them anymore?

Here's the latest edition of the Westward Gazette. 

We're having such a good time creating our monthly, er, every six-eight week newsletter!  Here's the latest installment.....

Yes, as you can see we do trick-or-treat.  I know it's a controversial topic among Christians, but I hope it won't become controversial here.  Our children enjoy dressing up and eating candy.  That's all.  No more, no less.  :) 

We are SO pleased with the first edition of the Westward Gazette!  I bought a $20 software program from WalMart called Perfect Pro Office that made our computer work simple.  (Word Perfect is the only office-type program that came on my computer and it stinks for projects.) 

The newsletter includes a story or journal entry from each child that they wrote in August, a Bible verse we've been memorizing, an August weather wrap-up, a brief review of our unit study and some fun experiments we did, plus a book review written by Mahayla.  (I'll admit that I did most of the typing this time around.  We were getting used to the new software and I was trying to teach them how to add clipart and pictures, so I didn't want to overwhelm them with the typing.  Next month, they'll take over more of the work.)

We've all decided that a monthly newsletter is a fun idea.  I hope all the relatives who get bombarded with them think it's a good idea, too!  :) 

If writing isn't a natural passion for your child, it can be a subject full of drudgery.  Believe me, I know.  Up until this year Mahayla has fought me tooth and nail over any sort of writing assignment.  This year has been different, though.  I believe she's enjoying writing partly because of maturity, but I've made a real effort to make writing more exciting this year, too.  I've already mentioned the writing prompts, so I thought I'd pass along some of the other ideas that are working.

JOURNAL WRITING

Jill Novak has written a wonderful book called The Gift of Family Writing.  In the book, she encourages the use of journals for each member of the family to write down life's stories as they happen.  I blog, that's what I consider my journal.  For Mahayla, I've made journal writing fairly structured for now.  Once a week she has gets to write in her journal.  I usually give her the assignment on Monday since so many memory-type stories come out of the weekend fun.  She is actually LOVING this journal writing thing!  And what wonderful memories she'll have of her childhood as we save the journals over the years.  I can even see her learning to enjoy this so much that she begins to write out journal entries when they aren't assigned. 

As for Caleb, we are just beginning his journal.  It's an assigned time each week, too.  As Jill suggests, for now, his journal is strictly narrated to me as I write what he says.  Jill believes getting the stories out is more important than the drudgery of actually writing for younger ones.  Telling their stories and then reading their stories back to them will develop much more in depth, real writing than if a child were struggling to physically write it themselves. 

BLOGGING

Early in 2007, I let Mahayla start a blog here on HSB.  She made entries here and there, but was never consistent.  In my goal planning for her year, I knew I wanted her to write more, get typing practice, and learn more about the computer.  So.....giving her a weekly blog writing assignment became part of the curriculum.  Again, this has been a "hit"!  She's allowed to write about anything she wants - even copying a recipe from a cookbook counts - so the assignment ends up being fun.  It especially helps that other little girls comment on her entries.  Doesn't everybody prefer a real audience for their writing?

NEWSLETTERS

I also have plans for taking one week each month and spending the language arts time doing a Family Newsletter.  There won't be any spelling, grammar, copywork, or other writing assignments the whole week.  That time will be spent writing, editing and publishing a newsletter using a computer template.  At the end of the week, the kids will mail off the Westward Gazette (or whatever they decide to call it) to family members.  Our first newsletter won't go to press for another week, but the kids are already excited about it.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Here's a fun way to get your kids to write!  Cut out interesting pictures from magazines and paste them on card stock.  Let your child choose a picture, then write a story that goes along with it. 

Here's the picture Mahayla chose this week.  This assignment really inspired her.  Before we began, I chose a picture and orally told a story with lots of detail so she would see that I was looking for a story rather than a description of the picture.  I encouraged her to tell her story orally, too, before writing it in order to get her thoughts flowing.

 "The Mischievous Dog"

Once on a sunny day in May, a girl named Kiri was filling up a tub to give her dog, Perry, bath.  When finally she was ready, Kiri called her dog Perry really loud so she was sure he would hear her.  But, alas, Perry would not come.  Where could he be?

Kiri checked everywhere, until finally she spotted him.  He was running towards his dog house.  Kiri ran after him.  She found Perry lying on the floor of his dog house pretending he was asleep.  But Kiri knew better!  She stepped outside and waited for him to peek out.  Very soon he did, so she caught him by the collar and drug him to the tub. 

After a lot of fighting with him, she finally finished the bath!  Right then, Perry ran straight for his dog house.  Kiri just looked at him and sighed.

We have a long way to go on filling up a story with many more details, but she's made leap and bound strides in adding interesting adjectives and keeping her thoughts organized.  Once a child is able to start thinking in an organized way and knows why it's important to add details that keep the reader interested, the stories begin to get longer almost automatically.  The program we started using last year that helped build better, more interesting sentences is called Igniting Your Writing.  I highly recommend it!