I have a love for the written word. (You may have noticed that once or twice already, lol)
You can guess my enthusiasm when I was notified that Ana, my 9 year old daughter, and I would be reviewing a product from WriteShop.
This is exactly what I wanted for all of my kiddos, but alas, my still struggling budding journal writer is the only one that got to use this amazingly wonderful WriteShop Primary Book C set.
With so many choices out there for helping children learn how to be better writers, I was a bit unsure about this program at first.
But to my utter delight, it is exactly what she needed to grow in confidence about her writing and her ability to really think about a story and then make it happen!
Our set contained the WriteShop Primary Teacher’s Guide Book C (printable ebook in PDF) and the WriteShop Primary Activity Pack, Book C (printable ebook in PDF).
WriteShop Primary Teacher’s Guide Book C ($29.50) is simply the best I’ve seen with the amount of information provided.
The ebook I was given has 241 pages in it with step by step instructions on how to prepare for the lesson with a detailed list of items you may need. I did not print this ebook, which i normally do, I left the PDF on my iPad for continued use. It works well either way you choose to use it.
There was a few items I had to make so that Ana could complete the lessons that she was given.
Not too much was involved and luckily we homeschool so most everything was on hand…well, almost everything.
I did need to pick up some colored file folders, some new 3×5 index cards, some fun pointers and a newspaper writer style flip notebook.
Anyway, this just a little needed extras that were designed to help Ana in the completion of her lessons.
We ended up using this program for about 20-30 minutes every few days. The lessons were not so hard that she couldn’t complete them, rather the actual writing portion still took her an extra bit of time. She is so much like me that, at first, is was extremely hard for her to learn to simply “write” out her thoughts because she inevitably knew that some of the words were spelled incorrectly.
The beauty of this program is that the point is to simply encourage this young writer to just write.
As we trekked through the lessons it was delightful to see Ana begin to bud with enthusiasm over how she was beginning to pull these stories together.
She was able to overcome her fear of being corrected as much as normal (it is sad to say, but the truth nonetheless).
Not only was this program a wonderful tool for encouraging Ana to be a better writer, it was a tool for me as well. It made it more clear to me that my natural tendencies to critique was way too overbearing. Little minds need more encouragement sometimes and awhole lot less correction when it comes to being creative. I cannot believe that I was actually making it harder for her (and my other kiddos) to be creative because I was constantly critiquing their ideas. Mind blowing lesson there for me….
Anyway, Ana by far has become a writer that gets way more encouragement now than ever before and the proof is in the pudding as they say.
WriteShop Primary Activity Pack, Book C ($4.50) was a excellent addition to the lesson plans. This ebook has 20 pages for reproduction (a total of 10 lessons) and they were easily printed from my computer.
Each activity was fun to set up and easy to administer. Ana enjoyed being able to capture her thoughts on paper and then work diligently on her stories.
Having been read to her entire life it was fun teaching her the who, what, when, where, why and how aspects of every story. She was better able to comprehend exactly how a story comes about.
Her favorite activity was the journal that she began to keep once she started this program.
She also loved to carry around her “newspaper” notebook and collect facts and information throughout her day.
As we near the completion of this program she has been able to gather her ideas, organize them into written words and “publish” her own stories.
The workbook pages also provided her numerous opportunities to correct other written works. I believe that was also encouraging to her because it made it easier for her to see that everyone makes mistakes the first, second and even third time during the writing process.
Overall we enjoyed using this program and I can even use it for review in a few months just to help refresh her in the aspects of writing. Thankfully the lessons were laid out well and were easy for me to understand therefore making it easy to explain the concepts to Ana. She had very little difficulty completing any of the lessons that she was given.
The WriteShop Primary Book C set is designed with second and third graders in mind. But I also think that a younger child that can write well or even the older reluctant writer would benefit from this program. There are various age groups that WriteShop produces so I would take the time to check out all of their products.
Would you like to keep up with WriteShop, you can do so here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writeshop
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/writeshop
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/writeshop/boards/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/kimkautzer
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Writeshop/
Check out some of the other programs offered by WriteShop and what the other Review Crew members had to say:
I hope you enjoyed this review and find something that just might work for you in your homeschool environment!
In His Grace.
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