Homeschool Elementary Writing Curriculum -PreK - 3rd -

 Homeschool Elementary Writing curriculum and resources for preK through 3rd grade.  Handwriting homeschool curriculum resources are included.  Let your children learn to love writing with fun easy to do writing activities, like simple journal writing, with coloring.  This post may included affiliate links to products that we love and have used or would use in our own homeschool. Please see my disclosure  policy.  



My main focus for writing during the early elementary years was to help my daughter become comfortable with putting words on the page. And to learn to love writing.  The most important part of my teaching her writing was to remember to FUN!  To keep it child led.

I got her writing using whatever way she felt comfortable.  We started with our child dictating her words, about her artwork and such, and I wrote them down for her.

- Dictating Their Own Words About Their Art -

We made time to write everyday. This was sometimes as simple as copywork or writing down what my daughter dictated to me, then reading it back.  As a preschooler, she delighted to see me write down the words that she dictated to me about her art, etc.

Click here for more on that - Encouraging Your Little Writer

For example, with her artwork,we often added a sentence or two about her picture.

At first, I would print it out for her. Later, as her writing skills developed, we did it as copywork.

Sometimes we tried bookmaking, with a drawing on each page and a sentence or two written below about each picture.


- Very Simple Story Writing -

We also made simple stories.  Click here to read all about how we did that here.  The Art of Simple Book Making.

Many happy hours were spent creating stories, art, and don't forget the illustrations! Every child's story needs its pictures, and drawing them usually helps the child to decide what happens next.

- Learning Handwriting -

We started with letter play.  I just got a bunch of A,B,C's that had magnets on them and left them on the refrigerator.

My little one played with them almost every day, learning the shapes of the letters from holding each one as she placed them on the frig, or moved them around.

When she was ready to start to learn handwriting, we used this simple frugal homeschool handwriting curriculum:

Here is the link, and see the photo to the left: Teach Your Kids to Write.  
Click here for more information and some very frugal resources for handwriting.

- Simple Journal Writing -

Another year we bought a blank "Hello Kitty" book and used it for journaling.

 I asked my daughter for an entry most days, either a drawing or a few words. Then later she would write her own sentences.

Through these simple everyday activities, my daughter built her confidence with writing. By second grade she was ready for something new. That's when we started Spectrum Writing - 2nd grade. This became our main homeschool writing curriculum for the next couple years.

- Spectrum Writing Homeschool Curriculum -

Are you familiar with the frugal homeschool curriculum from Spectrum?  They offer workbooks in all the core subjects.  We found their workbooks on writing to be a real help.  Their writing workbooks included a variety of writing activities to choose from, with different topics that were child-oriented.

Spectrum Writing was easy to use. I could pull out an activity that fit my daughter’s skill level and interest.  They say they are based on state standards, but we found them to be creative and developmentally appropriate.  And FUN!

The second grade Spectrum Writing workbook included lots of writing activities, a Writer's Handbook, an Answer Key, and the following chapters:

• Chapter 1 - Writing Titles and Sentences - Such as “Give the picture title” or “What is happening in this picture?”
• Chapter 2 - Telling and Asking, such as “Draw a place or a room. Write something about it.”
• Chapter 3 - Telling How - and Writing a Friendly Letter
• Chapter 4 - Describing – and the Five Senses - Such as “Take a bite of pizza. I see __________. I taste ________. I smell ___________.”
• Chapter 5 - Writing Stories

Each Chapter included six to eight writing activities with colorful illustrations.  There were easy to follow directions and any forms that were needed were included, too. Simple tests were also offered to check understanding, although we only used one or two.

If you are looking for new ideas to help you teach writing, my family recommends Spectrum Writing. It is available for grades 1 through 8. For more information, please go to: Spectrum Grade 2 

Michele at Homeschooling Down Under offers a Guide to Handwriting Copywork with resources for doing just that.

What would you add to this article?  How do you like to get your young learners to love writing?

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,



Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college grad, whom she homeschooled through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school, college, gifted/2e and wrote - Homeschooling High School with College in Mind.   She offers free homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting,  and has had her articles picked up by the Huffington Post.

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