Fun With Write Shop Primary B

I am very passionate about writing. I began writing short stories when I was only 6. Having a strong background with this skill has greatly influenced how I want writing taught in our homeschool. For a time, I thought about letting it occur naturally, but then I decided that we needed more direct instruction. My oldest takes everything very literally, so she does better when given steps to help her reach an end goal. After much researching we ended up with Write Shop Primary B.

Once I received the teacher's manual, I began reading it cover to cover. Initially, I was very overwhelmed. There was so much in the preparation part. It told me I needed pocket charts, large easel paper and all kinds of things I didn't want to buy. I was very close to not touching it this year. After taking a breather, though, I came up with a plan. I would do the lessons as listed but in a way that fit our homeschool. It really didn't take much changing. We just don't use chart paper or any of the fancy items.

Now, I will walk you through a lesson.

Each lesson begins with guided writing practice. You are given a prompt to follow each day to get you going. Tips for helping the student form their ideas are also in the manual. We usually write ours on our large white board or my daughter and I buddy write on a piece of paper. Sometimes, the day stops here. Other days, you work on your writing project for the unit.

Each unit has a writing project that you work on throughout each section. Our most recent one was definitely fun. Brina had to come up with our story about outer space. Her story was titled the Trip to Mars. Write Shop takes you through the whole writing process.

Pre-writing During the Pre-writing process, we used a star shaped graphic organizer and a short outline to organize Brina's ideas.

Rough Draft

Next comes the rough draft. Children are urged to work closely with the parent and use their graphic organizers to write their story. Write Shop suggested only 4-5 sentences. During the stage of writing, there is to be no focus on handwriting or spelling.

Editing and Revising This stage in our writing was so cute and simple. Brina sat down with a stuffed animal and went through trying to correct her work. I sat down with her as well. We made the correction right on the paper.

Final Draft Finally, Brina wrote her final draft. She used her rough draft and made the appropriate corrections. The curriculum wanted us to make a rocket ship out of an oatmeal box to stick her story inside. We came up with an easier idea. Her work is proudly hanging up on our school room door.

During this last 3 weeks of writing lessons, I think it finally hit me as to just bow great this writing program is. She is actually learning the steps in the writing process and also about different types of writing. It has just enough fun as well. The lessons are usually very short. Most days take about 10-15 minutes. I hope this helps anyone looking for a fun writing program. I will be sure to update again after the next 2 sets of lessons.