Welcome back to Southern Joy Podcast. In this Episode we are tackling writing and what writing really is. We look forward to sharing what we do in our homeschool days with writing. Our hope is not to tell you how to teach writing, but give you some insight into our days in hopes you can glean something from this topic that may help you.
One of the toughest hurdles we face is changing what we believe writing is to us and our children, and to do that we have to decide what it isn’t…………
1.It’s Not the physical art of pencil to paper.

2. It’s Not handwriting

3. It’s not producing a perfectly polished piece
It is……….

— The thought formed in our mind and spoken out loud

— Can be written on paper by anyone

— Learned through hearing and copying beautiful literature

What do we believe about writing?

Sharon believes:

*I believe my children learn writing is possible by watching me write what they say/

*my children learn to read by sounding out and copying their own spoken words/

*stories formed in their own mind will be visited for many years to come especially if they are recorded

Amber believes:

I believe writing is the spoken word. If your children can speak they are writing. I believe heavily on cop ywork of great literature and dictation. Also having a rich reading environment where the children are hearing and reading the written word. All things from poetry, Shakespeare to Great Literature. These things all build and create great writing voices and then in turn great writers. What I have learned over the years is writing is not Grammar and spelling and perfectly written paragraphs. I have found that when you get bogged down in that the writing of your child gets bland and boring and monotonous because they are more worried about the technicality and not their writing voice. I think it was Julie of Brave Writer that said writing takes 12 years to learn. That means us mamas need to be patient with our children even through high school.

How to Implement?

~GIVE THEM TIME

~ Journals

~Nature Journals

~Photo Stories

Art Stories

~Lots of Read Aloud

~Writing Materials everywhere~ even in the car

~Copy work and Dictation

~Talk about everything and remember that conversation is writing

~Encourage them to read their own writing to everyone especially family~ get out their journal

~Book making area

~Author’s Chair

~Friday Free Write

~Share real authors and their stories

Process:

~Learning to draw: first shapes eventually making it to step by step books and then independance
~Mom scribes all the writing
~Mom writes and child traces right over the writing with any writing utensil
~Mom writes and child copies one word on lines drawn underneath called magic lines
~Child gives words and mom draws the lines for child to sound out words
~Child writes on their own
*IF A CHILD ASKS for a spelling~ GIVE IT TO THEM

Give them beautiful passages to copy and maybe dictate~ scripture, poetry, book passage

*TRUST the process for years~ they will take ownership for themselves but allow time and scaffold as long as they need it

Encouraging Success~

~Anything is good and right (no preconceived expectations)

~Tell them often they are writers (authors)

~Look and listen to their stories

~Let them see us writing lists, in our journals, on our blogs, and published blog books (which my children read every single day!)

All in all writing is a belief in self that:

~ what our children say is important

~can be written down

~will be enjoyed

~will last for always

Our Favorite Resources:

Brave Writer

Beautiful Feet

Pencils

Pencil Sharpener

Book Holders

Dry Erase Boards

Our Blogs: Both of us blog about our writing experiences at these two addresses…

Fairytales and Firetrucks

Growing Whole Hearts

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