NaNoWriMo--in addition to or instead of other writing work?

[KarenNC]

My daughter is interested in doing the NaNoWriMo novel in November (she's 5th grade, this would be the elementary version, with a word count goal of between 800 and 1200 words). If you've done this, especially for elementary, do you drop your other writing curriculum? I'm working on grammar (MCT Town level--we're into Practice Town), spelling, Editor in Chief, Caesar's English with her and plan to continue, but considering letting this replace MCT's Paragraph Town for the month (we'd start back afterwards). She also attends a writing club once a month at the library.

[Elizabeth in WA]

I replace writing in English or Language Arts with NaNoWriMo for the month, but not writing for history or other subjects. :)

[Melissa B]

My 5th grader will be doing NaNoWriMo in her spare time. I don't change our scheduled school work in any way.

 

 

ETA: Dd set her own word count at 6000 words. I think it is a little high, but she has written books to give for Christmas presents the previous two years. (I have them printed up at Kinko's.) So she woud probably know better than I what she is capable of doing. Somewhere on the NaNoWriMo site I believe I saw something about getting one copy of the book printed for free this year. I plan to look into that more later in the month.

Edited October 31, 2010 by Melissa B

[lionfamily1999]

I replace writing in English or Language Arts with NaNoWriMo for the month, but not writing for history or other subjects. :)

:iagree:

[Mandy in TN]

This will be our first year. I think NaNoWriMo was suggesting 1000 words per grade, but I went lower. For our first experience, I set the word count for my 2nd grader at 1750. My 5th grade xtra student I set at 2500. The word count defaults to 50,000. If you want to set the student's word count lower, you have to go in and change it.

 

I will be limiting writing in their other subjects by doing whatever we can orally. My 2nd grader is doing MCT Island and I have made the executive decision that we will not be doing any writing exercises from MCT in Nov. However, if the opportunity presents itself, I may try to incorporate some of those topics and some grammar into our writing time.

 

I am interested in hearing how the experienced NaNoWriMo participants handle this!

Mandy

[Jamee]

We're shooting for 5000 words for my 5th grader. This is his first year too and he's very excited. We won't be doing much other free-writing during the month and tomorrow we're going to write all day to kick it off and get him started. We'll see what adjustments need to be made as the month progresses.

[Luckymama]

All English/Language Arts will be suspended for the month of November. She will still do whatever writing is required for history and science.

 

And she has yet to decide on a word count. If she doesn't choose, I'll default to 4000 words. She's written stories of 2000 words before.

[orangearrow]

I still haven't quite decided what we'll do yet. So, we'll play it by ear the first week.

 

For word count goals, I used this link:

 

http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/wordcount

 

I went with the middle range for each grade level for my kids. I want this to be an easily attainable goal - keeping it fun. It's our first year, so I don't want them to be stressed out about the numbers... :D They have friends their same age who are doing nanowrimo with a much higher word count, but these girls have finished books on their own before. This will be another first for my kids (they have lots of "starts" but not many "endings," lol!).

[Pamela H in Texas]

My son is older, but we are dropping LA otherwise to do NaNo. His word count goal is between the low and middle for a 10th grader according to the link so now I'm wondering if I'm asking too much of a very reluctant writer; but hubby says leave it so we will.

Edited October 31, 2010 by 2J5M9K

[KarenNC]

As this is our first year, I've used the suggested word count range from that link as well. We'll see what happens. She can write quite involved stories when she wants to do so, but is almost "pencil allergic" for almost everything else. I've never tried to do a word count of any of her stories---maybe we'll pull one out and see.

[anneofalamo]

This is our first year....I printed the whole teacher workbook and we went thru all 5 of us!! The brought out their regular creative writing notebooks, and counted how many words on 3 pages. We took that number and multiplied by 15, as we are only schooling 17 days in November.

 

5th graders goal - 3,000

6th graders goal - 4,500

9th graders goal -6000

Mom's goal 30,000

 

We have done most of the workbook instead of creative writing this past month, and I incorporated computer skills, as they each got a gmail account to log into nanowrimo, so when they finish their "goal" for the day, they can check email and the bookmarked sites as a reward!

 

btw, my kids are doing it on paper, not typing and are using pen, so no erasing, they have to cross out if they want gone. The inner editor is buried in our back garden!!

We are all excited, and I love how the prep has made them anticipate Monday's start time! They seem eager to begin, and have bantered their story lines around all week!!

[KarenNC]

So if you haven't done any of the workbook yet, would you set the word goal at the low end of the count?

[Mandy in TN]

Wow, I can't imagine where I got 1000 words per grade!

Thanks for that link.

Mandy

[anneofalamo]

So if you haven't done any of the workbook yet, would you set the word goal at the low end of the count?

Now I am confused? The workbook is to help them come Monday for the actual writing it doesn't count as word count. It is the bones to their story to write from? it was more drawing the characters, supporting ones and villians.

 

it is a game plan so to speak. Just not understanding why the word count would be lower? It is probably me, this is our first year, so please school me? :D

[5wolfcubs]

This is my children's fifth year doing NaNo and the first that I'm not dropping Language Arts for the month. We always have in the past but we got a late start to the school year & currently have no outside activities, which makes for plenty of free time!

 

My 5th grader set his word count is 7000 -- I think that is too high for him (he isn't a creative writer), personally. But he won last year for the first time (4th year) with a 5000 word count.

 

I think my 10th grader is doing 25,000 -- she's won each year and wants to work up to 50,000 by the time she isn't in the YWP anymore.

 

:thumbup1: to all the novelists!

[regentrude]

My DD wants to do it - and being the perfectionist she is, she insists on trying for 50,000 (she felt it did not "count" if she did the youth version - rolling eyes)

So we will suspend all English language activity for the month.

(Which is at a good point; we have finished Homeric epics and were about to start Greek tragedy... I guess that will have to wait till December.)

[Jamee]

Wow, I can't imagine where I got 1000 words per grade!

Thanks for that link.

Mandy

 

Those totals are differnt from the list I originally got, which was about 1000 per grade. Oh well, not going to tell DS, he can aim high.:D

[Elizabeth in WA]

My DD wants to do it - and being the perfectionist she is, she insists on trying for 50,000 (she felt it did not "count" if she did the youth version - rolling eyes)

So we will suspend all English language activity for the month.

(Which is at a good point; we have finished Homeric epics and were about to start Greek tragedy... I guess that will have to wait till December.)

 

She can do it! My ds12 did the full 50K last year. I'm not saying it was good writing mind you, but he did finish and he did learn quite a bit about plot traps and pitfalls. He is going for it again this year as well... confident he can avoid writing himself into corners requiring quite such contrived solutions this time. We'll see what happens. :) Either way, it's fun and educational. Completely worth 1 month (actually 3 weeks since we take a full week off for Thanksgiving) of English lessons. My boys do still have a book to read, but it's historical fiction and no lit analysis will be required. Grammar is on break for the period as well, but we will still finish our curriculum for the year, I scheduled this in from the start so it would work out.

[regentrude]

She can do it! My ds12 did the full 50K last year.

 

Yes, I know she can. She just finished a 140,000 word novel together with her friend.

I just wish she did not HAVE to set her goal that high because she is putting herself under a lot of pressure. Oh well, after 13 years I know that's how my daughter ticks.

[In The Great White North]

I replace writing in English or Language Arts with NaNoWriMo for the month, but not writing for history or other subjects. :)

 

 

:iagree:

[dm379]

We're keeping everything the same. This is my 4th grader's first time doing this plus we're moving this month so I set it at only 800. She's never written anything that long before. It's 9 a.m. on the 1st here and she's already written a few pages.

[Jamee]

We're keeping everything the same. This is my 4th grader's first time doing this plus we're moving this month so I set it at only 800. She's never written anything that long before. It's 9 a.m. on the 1st here and she's already written a few pages.

 

 

I am really impressed at how well DS is doing. We're taking the day off so he can just sit at the computer and write. He's doing great! (even managed to fit in the dare today too--have three of your characters enter a waffle eating contest.) I really think he'll reach his goal--he's just informed me he's past 500 words!