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Writing for 5th and 6th graders???


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They have done R&S this year in 4th and 5th, done copywork, dictation, and narrations, written lots of summaries and book reviews plus a few Sonlight assignments over the years. My oldest is finishing the Outlining book SWB recommends. I'm not sure where to go from here. I will probably order SL Language Arts 5 to go with our Core 5 next year and do the dictations and some activity sheets but probably not many writing assignments at all. It's just too advanced and not what I'm looking for. I'll use it mainly for dictation and some literary analysis and critical thinking about the books we read.

 

So, I'm looking at Writing Strands 4 and 5 and Wordsmith Apprentice and Wordsmith for them. But if we use one or a combination of those, what do I do with R&S writing assignments? I think they're pretty good and explain well, but they don't seem like enough. I've thought about switching to Abeka for grammar with a writing program added, but I don't want to do too much. I don't care for IEW. How can I bring them forward in writing and grammar without overwhelming either them or myself? I LOVE Writing With Ease and look forward to getting it for my younger kids this summer.

 

Thank you for your ideas! Lillian

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...Sentence Composing for Elementary School? It will strengthen all she's learning in R&S and get her writing strong sentences with varied structure.

 

My 6th grade dd has used Sentence Composing for Elementary School and Sentence Composing for Middle School. They're excellent! (You can get them off Amazon.)

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I use R&S grammar with my 5th & 6th grader along with CW Homer. I liked the writing assignments in R&S, but in order not to overload my boys with too much writing, I let them make notes cards and give an oral report sometimes. It was a great way to work on their presentation skills.

 

CW uses the classical Greek progymnasmata (or preliminary rhetorical exercises) to teach writing. We are just finishing our 2nd year of CW, and I have seen marked improvement in my boys' writing. In addition, they are applying the skills they learn to other writing assignments in history and science.

 

Here's a link to CW if you are interested: http://home.att.net/~classicalwriting/index.htm

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My son absoutely HATED writing. So we have gone slowly with it. In 5th grade, my dh stepped in and told him to read a section in the Kingfisher History ency. and write four sentences about it every day. We did a few book reports, and a report on Hitler for International Day, plus a history report. These reports were about 3/4 page typed, single space. I did a lot of the handwriting for him, and all of the typing (these were for a co-op situation). This year, for 6th, we did the history report again-he wrote it all, I edited it for him and typed. He continued to write summaries two to three times a week from either the KF history or science ency. I did not tell him the length, but they were usually four to five sentences. We did a few outlining lessons from Abeka grammar book we had lying around (we use Analytical Grammar). About a month ago, we started Writing Trails in American History. He loves it. He does not complain at all! We got through three or four lessons, and we'll probably try to get two or three more in this summer. He will start Meaningful Composition in the fall for 7th.

hth

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