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What does Writing look like for your 4th/5th grader?


madteaparty
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I understand from my other thread we should do more of this. Our main language arts program, Galore Park, does have writing assignments so I will make sure to do those. But wondering what it looks like for your kids. As a reference, we do GP as our main LA, then supplement with WWE as well as Ceasar English for vocabulary (we do one Ceasar English lesson a week, approximately). We memorise poems a couple of times a month. I am intrigued by copywork mostly, and wondering what you use for that.

Many thanks.

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My 4th grade son writes verses he's memorizing for church, lists of pronouns or other grammar items, other interesting things he needs to take note of or memorize. Last year, he kept a journal of the 50 states. He had a list of when they entered the union/ratified the constitution, their capitals, their nicknames. Then, he wrote a sentence or two about each one. It's in a composition notebook with 100 pages, so he has room in between each state to enter interesting facts he encounters going forward (we've had less success with that part, lol!). He had a template for writing about each state, a list of the dates they became states, and then a set of interesting state facts, so he could do this project completely independently. I helped him find and correct mistakes. He has dysgraphia, so he needs us to keep it very straightforward and short.

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In 4th grade, we were doing WWE3; when that got boring we did the first 10 weeks of WWS.  That was doable, but in retrospect, I wouldn't do that again - we should have just shifted to summarizing and one-level outlining in history when she was ready for more than dictation and summaries a la WWE.

 

In 5th grade we did WWS and wrote about books following the suggestions in SWB's Middle Grades writing lecture.  For the first part of the year, this was plenty.  As WWS became easier for her, I added in outlining or summarizing of the SOTW section she read that day.

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DS is in 4th grade... and we're doing Galore Park....and getting him to write is like pulling teeth.  He actually can write well, but because he's had issues with handwriting, it makes it more difficult.  Learning cursive has helped a lot.  We're also doing copywork to help with fluency in actual writing.  Thing that works best for us is partnership writing.  Basically he dictates, I write for the most part.  

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My fifth grader uses Rod and Staff English 5, R&S spelling 5, and Wordsmith Apprentice. His literature is based on The Chronicles of Narnia, and includes vocabulary. He has memory pieces too, but they're not tied to LA. He also writes in other subjects.

 

Here's where he's writing.

-various writing projects daily in Wordsmith Apprentice (this will build up to small essays by the end of the year)

-history summary or narrative, illustrated, about once a week

-important fact listing in architecture science (essentially a one point outline), 2-3 times a week, occasional writing about experiments

-occasional small writing projects from literature

 

 

My kids didn't do much of any copywork by fourth grade. I do like to assign large copywork assignments at the very beginning of the school year. My fifth grader hasn't done any copywork since then, and my third grader has only done the copywork her science book assigned.

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My son is in 4th grade. We use assignments from ILL and some wordsmith apprentice. I also will just let him write a couple of times a week about random things (Tell me about your family. Tell me about your weekend, etc). We will eventually work through different writing styles and use Kathryn Stout's Comprehensive Composition as a guide. My goal is that by the end of 4th, he can write a couple of well thought out paragraphs. By the end of 5th, my goal is a solid five paragraph paper. This is what I did with my daughter and it worked well.

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DD is in 5th grade, we are 6 weeks into our school year, and I've just completely switched everything over to TOG!  I had my curriculum purchased and all set back in February.  However, I then started looking at and researching TOG late this summer.  I purchased Year 2, Unit 1 (which corresponds to our history this year) just to compare and integrate small bits into our existing curriculum to see if it was a possibility for next year.  Needless to say, DD much prefers TOG! 

 

So, I just started following the TOG history and geography to start with.  Now, after 5 weeks of struggling with MP's Classical Comp and DD absolutely hating the repetition, I decided last night to purchase the TOG Writing Aids component.  DD started her 6th week this morning totally excited and happy.

 

Writing Aids looks very comprehensive and includes dictation, steps to writing with details, graphic organizers, how to compose sentences, paragraphs, the different writing genres, essays, research reports, rubrics for grading, and much more.  I'm very impressed.  Instead of starting the program at Week 1, we dove right in to Week 5 at level 5 (our previous history/geography/writing more closely corresponds to their Week 5).  This week she will be gaining more experience with the prewriting step using graphic organizers.  Best of all, she will be writing about what she is learning in history this week.

 

The cost of the Writing Aids component was $40 as a DE download.  It's a one-time purchase and will correspond with all Year plans and each level I purchase in the future.  So I won't need to purchase this again.

 

Needless to say, we will be doing TOG from now on.  I'm already planning to purchase the rest of the units in Y2 for this year and all of Y3 for next year.  I'll probably sell the stuff I originally purchased for this year to recoup some of my expenses.

 

 

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I'm sure you are doing enough...

 

Both of my kids use/used Calvert for 4th grade.  THe Writing program begins with writing one paragraph assignments using shape planners.  WIthin two weeks, they are writing 2 paragraph assignments using shape planners.  They learn to keep a notebook with special words like chronology words, transition words, exciting adjectives, and exciting verbs, so they can look back on their notebook.  They also use a "Polishing POints" checklist which starts with things like capitalization and complete sentences.  By the end of hte year they are checking for parallel structure, exciting verbs and adjectives, not repeating, not announcing, etc.  By the middle of the year 3 paragraphs is expected, and the child is expected to choose whichever shape planner he likes best.  At the very end of the year two 5 paragraph essays are expected.  This process is repeated in 5th grade, only it starts in faster.  And at the end of 5th grade students learn to write outlines instead of using shape planners.

 

 

I always help with spelling, by either just spelling for them or giving them word banks of the words they want.  I also go through them step by step for each revision, using proper proofreading marks so that they feel they are getting good feedback and improvement on each draft.  

 

In 4th grade, drafts are not expected.  Students may skip lines and erase neatly to fix things.  Not until the end of the year are drafts expected.  this is a nice touch with the Calvert 4th grade writing, as both of my children were quite capable of writing a good paragraph or two from a shape planner and did not need multiple drafts to make it sound nice. That would have overwhelmed them.  

 

 

FWIW when I was in 5th grade back int he day we did just a TON  of creative writing and almost nothing serious, and my teachers bound it into a beautiful spiral bound book which I still have today.  My love of writing began then.  It doesn't have to be always serious at this age.

 

 

 

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We do Brave Writer, so we have a routine for writing. We do narration once a week (written, since my kids don't let me scribe for oral), dictation once a week, freewriting once a week, and we do writing projects once a month. We're using the new Partnership Writing for writing projects. I choose most of our dictation passages myself. Narrations are usually based on reading for science or history. We also write when it comes up in other subjects and in life, of course.

 

I feel like it's enough writing.

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I am glad you started this. It is the area I feel most unsure in and found the answers reassuring. I hope you do too.

My 4th grader is doing:

-Daily copy work that I think he still needs: Scripture & Literature
-Writing a one sentence summary of a paragraph 2 or 3 times a week (I have to help with spelling)
- R&S spelling
- R&S English 4 that has copy work, grammar, and some writing of one paragraph at a time or copying a paragraph.

He usually has done science & history note booking, but I am trying to take a different angle this year.

We finally figured out he is left handed last February & that had helped a lot!  This has been his weakest area, and I do consider us not as far yet in it as I would like to be.  I think of 5th as progressing to multiple paragraphs and this year making a transition to that goal.

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My 4th grader does:

 

*daily copywork of Latin vocabulary and a grammar sentence.

 

M- Vocabulary words/definitions from history, copies 15 sentences from history (facts)

T- outline and written narration from Classical Writing, answers comprehension questions from history

W - freewrite for 10 min., copywork from Classical Writing

Th - written narration in science (at least 5 sentences), dictation from Classical Writing

F- Final draft in Classical Writing

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So far we have been doing:

 

Monday - brainstorming

Tuesday - outline

Wednesday - rough draft

Thursday - rough draft (finish)

Friday - revise, edit and publish final draft (I type for them)

 

Each week we do a different type of writing - story, report, play, persuasive, etc.

 

We just received Essentials in Writing, so I am going to try that and see how it goes as well.

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My fifth grader's writing goes somewhat like this:

Intermediate Language Lessons 4x a week for 30 min each (includes narration, dictation)
History writing project 5 min 2x a week, 15 min 2x a week

Science 1x week 30 min creating a notebook page in his science journal

Penmanship 15 min 3x a week, copywork 1x a week 
Wordsmith Apprentice 60 min. 1x a week

 

This is what he can handle at this time and grow in skills at the same time. I'm going to work in one more written narration for one passage in a book starting in February, and possibly a book report (if he's ready) around that time as well.

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My 4th grader does copywork 4x per week -- 3 days it is more to focus on handwriting, so it is just a few words to focus on neat cursive writing, and the 4th day it is a full Bible verse.  We've tried famous quotes or other things in the past, but she prefers Bible verses.

 

Then we are using Book 1 of the new Writing and Rhetoric program from CAP, interspersed with occasional weeks of "Write On!"   For example -- we just did 4 weeks of Writing and Rhetoric, now we are doing a week or maybe two of Write On.    On W&R weeks, she has one day of oral work (I read her the fable of the week and we do oral discussion questions), 1 day of short responses (fill in the blank or individual sentences) and typically two days of longer writing assignments.  We're not doing the copywork or dictation portion of that program, since we have other copywork and I prefer to do dictation along with our spelling.

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In 4th grade, oldest DD did the sentence-writing/applied grammar exercises in Killgallon's "Grammar for Middle School" (she had previously done "Story Grammar), then "Paragraph Writing Made Easy", and then the first 11 weeks of WWS1. She wasn't ready to move on to the later part of WWS1 and she was complaining that the selections in the workbook had nothing to do with what she was studying. So we dumped the WWS1 workbook and just worked on the skills using selections from her content subjects.

 

Aside from WWS1 skills, she also focused on creative writing. She used the NaNoWriMo Young Writers' Project workbook, "Adventures in Fantasy" by John Gust, and "The Plot Whisperer" by Martha Alderson.

 

This year in 6th, she is working through "The Lively Art of Writing" by Lucille Payne Vaughn with the workbook.

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My 4th grader doesn't do copywork any longer.  She does do:

 

MCT Lang.Arts - Daily for 15-20 min (We use all the components but I am selective about which writing & poetry assignments I have dd do.)

Writing Block - Daily for 30-45 min (Dd chooses her own projects and uses the writing process.  I do give her a checklist at the start of the year to encourage her to write in a variety of genres.)

Written Narrations - Daily for 5-10 min (alternating between history and science).

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My fifth grader typically has this amount and type of writing per week:

 

Dictation (2), commonplace book, handwriting, Intermediate Language Lessons, written narrations (2-3 per week) and lessons from the Imitations in Writing series (Greek Myths and also the Medieval Legends book) but, we do ILL and the work from Imitations in Writing books as I like (so no set schedule with this). I do intend to switch her over to KISS and most likely to CW Homer once we are settled again. My main goal this year is to focus more heavily on grammar and to increase her written narration work.

 

 

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I saw your other thread. My boys are 4th grade and not composing/writing 30 minutes a day. One would hate it/wilt and the other possibly would lose the joy he has in writing.

 

We're using CAP Writing and Rhetoric. I don't know how I'm going to pace it. We did WWE2 last year--an oral summary daily that I wrote down. I'm still playing with our approach this year, but we don't write as much as was suggested as typical/needed in your other thread.

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I'm a recent convert to Brave Writing. It really is a way of life vs. being just curriculum. My boys are ten.

 

1. My boys are working on a larger "report" (don't know what else to call it, but it's short) on raptors after watching a Wild Kratts show on them and reading books.

 

2. I have them do dictation-copywork two or three times a week -- I usually read from a Harry Potter book to keep their attention.

 

3. Today I had one boy write a paragraph in Yoda's voice about how much he loved his cat. The other boy did it in Batman's voice -- his idea after nixing my Darth voice idea. (This idea comes specifically from Julie Bogart who created Brave Writer.)

 

4. I'm also having them add to an ongoing list of neat things we'll be doing if we -- tears inserted here -- have to move. We're writing that we're "taking" things we love like not only each other and all of our things, but seasons (the new state as the same seasons as our current state), Cupcake Wars (a favorite TV show), swimming pools etc., my favorite radio show etc. etc. Their list obviously involves Legos and pizza.

 

5. My favorite exercise -- because my boys love it -- from Julie is "freestyle writing." You set the timer for 10 mins. or 15 mins. or whatever and tell the child just to write whatever for that specific amount of time. So they start off writing "I hate this. I want to watch Ninjago. My leg itches." Over time with your help (and Julie's) the writing starts to morph into something meaty. It's impressive to see this in action.

 

There's more, but this gives you an idea. My boys went from avoiding writing to really looking forward to the projects.

 

Alley

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My 5th grader does

 

WWE 4 (3-4x a week) sometimes we combine 2 lessons. So this is narration/dictation.

 

Copywork 2x week- We use bible verses, poetry, passages from our literature, for this age he does a pretty good sized paragraph.

 

We do Bravewriter on Fridays- write poetry, nature journal, or fine art journaling. In November we will add Bravewriter Arrow.

 

In Jan we will begin IEW and alternate it with WWE.

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My 4th grader does all writing assignments in R&S English.  She does at least one narration a week, either from science or history.  She does a copywork verse 2-3 times a week.  I am using Memoria Press's copybook cursive. She needs the cursive practice, so that is what her copywork is for at this point.  She does dictation once a week.  And she has a pen pal and keeps personal notebooks that she writes little stories in occasionally.

 

5th grader last year did a lot more writing.  We had more time (were home more) last year and she is just capable of more.  She did CHOLL and did all of the literature dictation and summaries in that.  She did an outline for history a week and a summary for history a week.  She did R&S English's writing assignments.  

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We are doing Moving Beyond the Page language arts units. I make DD do all the writing assignments there. I also make her write out her exercises in Simply Grammar, more this year (5th) than last year.

 

She also does copywork to practice cursive and a typing course.

 

Writing is a major challenge in our house, but progress is being made.

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My 4th grader:

 

CAP's Writing and Rhetoric 4x a week for two week chunks, and then we break from CAP for one week and are working through Igniting Your Writing. CAP includes narration, written summaries, dictation, and creative writing. Igniting Your Writing really breaks things down into small details to hone her writing.

 

She also does written narrations twice a week from history, science, or literature.

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