I’m always excited to find picture books that would work well as writing prompts for elementary school kids, so I was extra excited to find Ten-Word Tiny Tales: To Inspire and Unsettle by Joseph Coelho (Candlewick, 2023). This new volume has stories that are each, as the title suggests, just ten-words long. With a variety of illustrators
Read MoreA fantastic 60-page picture book geared for middle school students (The One Thing You’d Save) can mentor your students in in the writing concepts of ideas, voice, a new type of poetry, and even more. Just like in the book, an open discussion can help students recognize the impact of these good writing traits. Further,
Read MoreHoliday “crackers” are getting more and more popular in the USA, so we had fun with holiday compound words by putting the broken “crackers” together during our hands-on Language Art lesson. Holiday Crackers for Compound Words When our family spent a year in Australia (my oldest was born there), my favorite part of the familiar holiday season
Read MoreThe students in my co-op writing class (who are in first to fourth grade) really struggle with starting a story. For the most part, every story starts with “Once there was….” and goes from there. “Once upon a time…” is a close second. It is a challenge to get them to think outside of the
Read MoreWith Thanksgiving coming, it’s time to reflect on what it means to us personally, as well as the context in which we traditional celebrate the holiday. For my older students in my homeschool writing co-op, I found writing about history is a nice way to approach it. Why Read and Write about Thanksgiving?When it’s time
Read MoreTo encourage my children to write more often, I’ve tried to make sure I have a writing center easily accessible to them in our school room (which is also our playroom). As we make writing a fun part of our days, my children get handwriting practice as well as practice writing from their own creativity
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