CM People...How much writing do your 3rd through 6th graders do?

[TKDmom]

I know that's a wide age range, but I have a 6th grade dd and a 3rd/4th grade ds, and I can't shake the feeling that we're never doing "enough" writing.

 

Can you spell out what and how much writing your upper elementary kids do...copy work, dictation, narration, free writing, etc?

[Kfamily]

Hmmm, well I can give you our examples:

 

 

My older dd (now in high school) did roughly this in 6th:

 

Copybook (at least one entry per week) (this is between copywork and a commonplace book)

Dictation (twice per week)

Oral Narrations (2 or more per day)

Written Narrations (1-2 per week)

 

We also used a writing program.We used CW Homer at that time...we also used Harvey's for grammar

 

My younger dd (now in 4th) does the following for writing:

Italics Handwriting (1/2 page per day)

Copybook

Dictation (twice per week)

Oral Narrations (2 or more per day)

Written Narrations (1-2 per week)

 

We also use a writing program. She's using Imitations in Writing Greek Myths and Medieval Legends (alternating) and we've been reading through Grammarland (+the books by Ruth Heller as we cover that part of speech in Grammarland) and the worksheets (by the kind board member here who created them:))

 

They both do a lot of free and creative writing on their own...they really enjoy this.

[Walking-Iris]

I'm not exactly hard core CM, but I do love her philosophy on education more than most. I can answer how much writing my current 4th grader is doing.

 

We use Bravewriter and WWE so that's one indication of how much we do, but I'm not married to those ideas. Narration we do daily with WWE and we do every time we read anything. I don't ask for specific styles of narrations like WWE suggests when it's not specifically WWE time. We just simply talk about what we are reading, learning, doing etc all the time. I occasionally ask him to write down his narration in WWE and SOTW time. But not every time. He'll write down a narration maybe twice a week. Sometimes i just randomly ask him to write something. I asked him to write and tell how it would feel to be in a Polar Bear Club after we watched a video about that particular winter activity. But he likes to write. This isn't something I would necessarily "make" a child do.

 

He also does a dictation everyday since we double up on WWE. I use Arrow guides, and they have longer dictations. I give those to him as copywork once a week. He actually does quite a bit of informal copywork on his own. He likes to keep a notebook where he writes favorite lines from what he is reading. That's on his own terms.

 

We have Freewrites on Fridays. He also just writes on his own throughout the week: lists, little stories, ideas, scripts. We have taken one Freewrite through the entire editing/revising process. He also has a writing activity once a month via Arrows. One of them was a short story that he worked on for quite some time and we edited and revised.

 

He puts his spelling/vocabulary words into sentences a few times a week. We keep a notebook of scientific terms and definitions.

 

We have written two typical paragraphs. Topic sentence and supporting points blah blah. But I don't ask him to do that often.

 

I've introduced the idea of keeping a daily journal. He's sort of lukewarm on the idea.

 

He has written two friendly letters to mail this year (to his Nana and his OT) and one email (to his Nana).

 

I can tell you that my plans for next year do include a bit more writing. Most of the same but more written narrations and book responses. I also am planning one writing project to be worked on and taken through the entire writing process each month. More outlining. More research type essays. Short ones.

[SFM]

Bump...I am interested in this as well. I have tried Writing Strands, IEW, and WWE and while I like WWE sometimes it seems a little difficult for my son (the dictations), so I am interested in incorporating more of these ideas and would be interested to see what others might add. This has been helpful, thank you.

[Esse Quam Videri]

I am trying to follow CMs method of writing as much as I can and focus on reading lots of great literature, dictation, and narrations at this point. DD is an avid, gifted reader, and becomes entirely engrossed with her books... she's almost like a young Anne Shirley :). I know she'll be a gifted writer, but I don't expect that as a 3rd grader. We do use WWE, but I'm not sure we will continue it, because I don't quite like how forced it is. I feel like DD is trying to say/write what she thinks is expected. PS 3rd graders write lots, but look at the quality of the writing. Sadly, for many of these kids it doesn't get much better throughout their school years, and they end up still writing like elementary students when they get to college. I just don't think beautiful composition is a grammar stage skill.

[Mom2OandE]

Dd 4 th grade will be starting iew next week. Right now we do copywork, dictation and oral narration. I'm going to have her start writing more of her narrations. Ds 3 rd grade has dyslexia so we are approaching writing in a whole different way. Right now he primarily focus on handwriting and oral narration with an occasional dictation exercise.

[TKDmom]

So I have been spending time on the AO website trying to figure this out, and I decided to implement a narration jar. They had a file on the AO forum that had 4 pages of narration questions. Some involve acting or drawing. Some have writing, and some are just oral narrations approached from a different angle than I usually think of (e.g. "compare and contrast the main character with yourself" or "find a Biblical truth in today's reading" or "Mom's turn to narrate!").

 

So dd and I spent some time yesterday printing our narration questions on colored paper and cutting them apart with fancy scissors to put them in a jar.

 

After a whole day and a half, my kids are writing more. ;) Dd11 wrote a 5-question test from her history reading, compared Robinson Crusoe's actions with what she would have done in his place, and wrote out a 3 sentence dictation exercise.

 

Ds9 did his handwriting, copied the shortest quote he could find from his literature book :rolleyes: and finally copied a picture from Wind in the Willows and (to my total shock) he voluntarily copied a couple sentences from the text to go with his picture. This is huge for him. He usually groans over having to do anything related to pencils.

 

Ds7 did his usual copy work and then happily acted out the Aesop's fable we read. He is usually resistant to narrating Aesop (which I totally understand. It seems pointless to narrate a simple paragraph right after reading it).

 

My point is... I think my kids (and I) just need some variety in their writing assignments. We've done WWE, CW, MCT, and I can't remember what else, but the writing has always been a huge chore that we all avoid. I probably need to be more consistent and provide a variety of interesting exercises that get done every. single. day.

 

And this weekend I think I will go back a re-read The Writer's Jungle. She seemed awfully similar to CM in some of her ideas.

[SFM]

So I have been spending time on the AO website trying to figure this out, and I decided to implement a narration jar. They had a file on the AO forum that had 4 pages of narration questions. Some involve acting or drawing. Some have writing, and some are just oral narrations approached from a different angle than I usually think of (e.g. "compare and contrast the main character with yourself" or "find a Biblical truth in today's reading" or "Mom's turn to narrate!").

 

So dd and I spent some time yesterday printing our narration questions on colored paper and cutting them apart with fancy scissors to put them in a jar.

 

After a whole day and a half, my kids are writing more. ;) Dd11 wrote a 5-question test from her history reading, compared Robinson Crusoe's actions with what she would have done in his place, and wrote out a 3 sentence dictation exercise.

 

Ds9 did his handwriting, copied the shortest quote he could find from his literature book :rolleyes: and finally copied a picture from Wind in the Willows and (to my total shock) he voluntarily copied a couple sentences from the text to go with his picture. This is huge for him. He usually groans over having to do anything related to pencils.

 

Ds7 did his usual copy work and then happily acted out the Aesop's fable we read. He is usually resistant to narrating Aesop (which I totally understand. It seems pointless to narrate a simple paragraph right after reading it).

 

My point is... I think my kids (and I) just need some variety in their writing assignments. We've done WWE, CW, MCT, and I can't remember what else, but the writing has always been a huge chore that we all avoid. I probably need to be more consistent and provide a variety of interesting exercises that get done every. single. day.

 

And this weekend I think I will go back a re-read The Writer's Jungle. She seemed awfully similar to CM in some of her ideas.

 

 

Would you mind linking the idea about the narration jar? I am not sure where to find it on Ambleside, these sound like great ideas, thanks ever so much for sharing.

[kagmypts]

So I have been spending time on the AO website trying to figure this out, and I decided to implement a narration jar. They had a file on the AO forum that had 4 pages of narration questions. Some involve acting or drawing. Some have writing, and some are just oral narrations approached from a different angle than I usually think of (e.g. "compare and contrast the main character with yourself" or "find a Biblical truth in today's reading" or "Mom's turn to narrate!").

 

Would you mind sharing the link to the narration questions? Thank you!

[Kfamily]

This is not the one that is referred to above, but I thought I'd share this anyway.

 

http://www.ambleside...rrationCube.pdf

 

 

I have the narration strips printed and cut up too and I'm trying to remember where I found it. I'll add it back to this post if I can find it.

 

 

Here it is:

 

https://amblesideonline.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=213

 

 

You'll need to scroll down to find it....Narration Jar Ideas

[stephg]

I know of this list.

 

http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/narration/

 

Would you mind sharing the link to the narration questions? Thank you!

Would you mind linking the idea about the narration jar? I am not sure where to find it on Ambleside, these sound like great ideas, thanks ever so much for sharing.

[SFM]

Thank you... that's a start.

[TKDmom]

 

 

 

Here it is:

 

https://amblesideonline.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=213

 

 

You'll need to scroll down to find it....Narration Jar Ideas

 

 

Yes, that's the one. This is the actual link to the document, but I don't know if it will work. https://amblesideonline.org/forum/attachment.php?aid=50

I was going to copy and paste the document, since it is more difficult to access the AO forums, but then I wasn't sure if it's taboo to paste a document from one forum to another one. I don't even know who to credit for the narration questions.

[TKDmom]

I know of this list.

 

http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/narration/

 

 

That looks like another great list that we can pull ideas from when our current ideas start to get stale.