NaNoWriMo - how do you use it with your kids?

[EmilyGF]

I have a prolific writer. She's nearly 9 and constantly makes books and fills them (or at least the first few pages!). I think she might (?) enjoy NaNoWriMo.

How do you use it in your homeschool?

 

Emily

[SilverMoon]

I download the workbook for them, show them where I put the file, and say, "Knock yourself out, kid."  That pretty much takes care of it around here. The workbooks walk them through preparation nicely, and after that's done it's time to write. If they need more space they'll open WordPad and keep going.

[marbel]

At that age we just had fun with it.    We used the workbook some, but mostly we just had a fun month.  I did it with them.  We drank a lot of tea, went out to write in cafes occasionally, and ate a lot of pizza for dinner.   We read each other bits of our stories but in the end did nothing with them. They were all terrible and no one wanted to revisit them.  They learned a good bit and the two of them did it again the next year.  (I did not.)  No one has expressed a serious interest in doing it again - we did it 5 years ago - each year we mention it but that's as far as it goes.   But we have great memories.  One of them still does a little creative writing now and then but it's not a burning desire. 

[VorLady]

I have to include my 6 year old in NaNoWriMo (she wanted to do it last year too!) because my husband and I participate every year. This is my 14th year at it actually. My daughter likes making up long involved stories and telling them verbally, then illustrating them, so we take some time to work together. I teach her how to write an outline of what she's going to tell, come up with characters and what they look like, and then we get a nice blank book with a fun cover and she works on her story while I write. I'm hoping to encourage her to write a sentence on each page this year which will be a step up from last year.

 

The NaNoWriMo site has a lot of resources but I'm not sure what age it's aimed at. Speaking as a big NaNoWriMo fan, for your daughter I would advise having her set a reasonable word count goal every day and stick to it. 200 words? 50? You will know best. Encourage her to plot her story before NaNoWriMo starts because that makes things so much easier. Let her decide how to write it - in a nice notebook, or on the computer. 

 

Oh and resist any urge you have to correct her work as she goes. IF she wants to edit the story, wait til she's done. NaNoWriMo is about getting stories written, not about getting them written right :)