Draw Write Now, did it work for your dc?

[Lovedtodeath]

I was all excited after ordering the books and DH said well you know how she doesn't like being told what to do. :glare: He does not think they will be worth it. I got them to help us make pages for our geography/ecology notebook. Books 7 and 8.

[Tina in WA]

I keep them out and available for the kids to use when ever they want to. They go through phases with them. They will use them all the time, then there will be weeks of them just sitting there.

 

My dd also took a Draw Write Now co-op class and she LOVED it.

[Laura Corin]

We do the same. Hobbes' official art curriculum is Artistic Pursuits. He just does Draw Write Now when he feels like it. He's doing a page every morning before school at present, but that may not last.

 

Laura

[Lenora in MD]

My kids thought it was fun. Since you have already ordered it, you might as well try it and see how it goes. The drawing part is fun. The handwriting was too much for my kindergartner.

[Debbie in OR]

I bought all of them for the same reason. My dc loved them the first 3 days...couldn't stop drawing. Then.....nothing. For weeks. And weeks. So, I finally sold them. Not two weeks later, they were asking for them again! :glare: So, I found one at a used bookstore very cheap and brought it home. Exactly the same thing happened. So, what Tina and Laura said I think is true...just have them available and they will probably just cycle through them.

[clwcain]

My oldest has taken to DWN like a moth to flame, and we've seen quantum leaps in his fine motor control in the last 3 months.

 

It's not part of the "official" daily sequence. That's limited to Phonics and Italic Handwriting right now.

 

But the books are available, and several of them feature the sorts of things he wants to draw: people, farm animals, etc.

 

Since we're doing a separate handwriting course, and he's still learning to read, we ignore the "Write" part of the Lessons. We also tend to skip around. One week he was mad about chickens, the next whales and other cetaceans. Another week tractors, trucks, and barns. We let him use the books as he wishes, helping where he appears to need help.

 

Among the improvements we've noticed: fine motor skills, analytical ability, satisfaction with his own work, confidence to work with greater independence, desire for greater verisimilitude in his work which is leading him to practice. I'm sure there are more, but I'm not around to see all of it.

 

I will note that I was initially put off by the "style" of the illustrations. I was expecting something different by way of a drawing course. However, the more I've seen it in action, the happier I am with it. DWN is very age appropriate, and that is much better than handing my boy a "better" drawing text that assumes the capacity for abstraction and fine motor-skills of a young adult.

 

Just my $0.02. YMMV

[GreenKitty]

I just purchased a couple of these and look forward to using them this fall!

[Chris in VA]

Dd uses them on her own. There's an example of something she did on my blog, and I'm going to put up a couple more pics this afternoon. I don't think of them as either a drawing course or real art, because I think that comes from inside the child, not copying someone else's procedure. But she is at the stage where she wants her work to actually look like something, and these have sharpened her eye for detail (nature notebooking did, too), and helped her see how legs and heads are drawn in proportion, as well as given her ideas on backround.

 

I think they are fine for the way you will use them. Oh, and she never copies the words, either, but ymmv.:D

[ABQmom]

My dc refer to them at times when they are looking for something to draw. When my 2 oldest girls were in 2nd and 4th grade, we used a couple of the books for history. They would copy the sentences given and draw the picture as it related to what we were studying for American history. We put all the finished pages together at the end of the year, and it made a nice booklet of what they had learned.

[Lovedtodeath]

I think they are fine for the way you will use them. Oh, and she never copies the words, either, but ymmv.:D

 

Sounds like good reviews so far. Thanks! What's ymmv stand for??

[clwcain]

Your Mileage May Vary

[Wildiris]

We got Draw*Write*Now for DD when she wanted to learn how to draw as well as her older brother.

 

We already had Hooked on Drawing and Artistic Pursuits but neither of these achieved her desired results.

 

Using the simple techniques illustrated in each lesson, using both line and color, her drawing improved over time to where she felt confident about her ability to draw anything she wanted. We never did the writing, and like the other posters, we are not consistent with our use. The books can sit on the shelf for months unused; however, in the beginning we used the books daily.

 

I would recommend getting a very good set of colored pencils. After many colored pencil sets, we've found LYRA Polycolor a sturdy, good texture pencil. An excellent pencil makes a difference. We also use a Waldorf style student book that has a sheet of velum protection between drawing pages.

 

Happy drawing!

Wildiris