TOS Crew: WriteShop

We were blessed with the opportunity to do a review for the WriteShop curriculum for the TOS Crew.  The WriteShop is an incremental writing program that was written by Kim Kautzer and Debbie Oldar.  This curriculum teaches students how to write through a series of engaging lessons.

Students learn the four most common kinds of writing—descriptive, informative, narrative, and persuasive, with the WriteShop Curriculum.  By following the four basic building blocks of writing - brainstorming, writing, editing and revising, students learn how to write while build the confidence they need.

While not a grammar program, the WriteShop does however, encourage growth and awareness in vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
WriteShop offers several levels of curriculum choices:

• WriteShop Primary A - for K, 1st or reluctant 2nd graders
• WriteShop Primary B - for 1st, 2nd or reluctant 3rd graders
• WriteShop Primary C -for 2nd, 3rd or reluctant 4th graders
• WriteShop Junior - for 3rd, 4th, or reluctant 5th graders
• WriteShop I - 6th-10th
• WriteShop II - 8th-12th 

I thought this would be a good fit for Computer Girl.  We choose Primary Level C since it is for grades 2nd-4th, and Computer Girl is in 3rd grade.   The Write Shop website has a page that helps with curriculum placement, I found this to be very helpful!

We received the WriteShop Primary Book C (Teacher's Guide) as well as the Activity set.  Both of these are available in ebook form but we received the print editions. 

Computer Girl has enjoyed working through the WriteShop book very much.  She enjoys the lessons as well as the writing assignments.  We had not really focused on writing for Computer Girl before now and so far, I have seen an improvement from when we first began and a greater desire to write.  The has now claimed serveral new notebooks and is writing stories for fun!  Yippee!

One thing I'd like to mention is this not a hum-drum boring program.  The authors of this program knew what they were doing when they created it, they have added in an extra element of fun amongst the writing lessons.  There is joy in my child's face when the yellow Primary C book comes out. 

Would I recommend this program?  ABSOLUTELY!! 

Will we continue to use this program?  Yes indeedy!  I think I would even like for my older daughter to do one of the older levels next year. 

Not to sound all commercially or anything, but if you are looking for a new writing curriculum for next year, look no further!  Folks, I think we have a winner!

The WriteShop Curriculum ranges in price.  The Primary Book C, printed edition, that we received is
$32.95 and the Activity Sheets are $4.95.

Currently, the WriteShop is offering a 15% discount off of any WriteShop Primary and Junior products in the WriteShop store (including e-books) for TOS Crew readers.  Use the coupon code CREW15 at checkout. Offer valid through June 15, 2012.

Please see what other TOS Crew members are saying about the WriteShop Curriculum!

Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received the WriteShop Primary C Book and Activity Set, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.

TOS Crew: CapJaxMathFax

I love for the kids to have different ways to practice their math facts, and computer games are one of their favorite ways to do that.  So, when we were offered the opportunity to review the CapJaxMathFax game we were all over it! 

CapJaxMathFax is a learning game that allows children to learn their math facts from the beginning all the way to mastery!

Here's what I liked about the program:

• This program is suitable for children as young as kindergarten all the way up to adults. 
• CapJax allows the student to work on addition, subtraction, multiplication, division or any combination of them at once.
• The students progress is recorded and their skill level is automatically set accordingly.
• The children like the positive feedback after getting a correct answer.
• They also like that they can earn merit badges!
• Progress and scores are kept for each child so I know where they are and what they need to work on.
• They like being timed so that they can beat their last score.
• I like that this is a one time purchase. 
• I like that it is affordable.  It's only $29.95 to download the CapJaxMathFax.  This purchase covers up to 10 users.
• It is a math drill that all the kids can use. 

I do think that this is a good program to learn and practice math facts, and I would recommend it.  It's affordable, it keeps track of the students progress and it gets the job done! 

I would say that it is best suited for children that like are motivated by beating the time, high scores, and word of praise.  If you are looking for something with a lot of cutesy characters and fluff this might not be the best choice. 

You can purchase the CapJaxMathFax game as a Computer Download for $29.95 or on a CD with a Download Licenece for $35.90 plus shipping.

Check out what others on the TOS Crew think about CapJaxMathFax!

Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine

Bringing Books to Life - Arts and Crafts!

This week has been lots of fun and sort of an encouragement to me.  I can tend to be on the check it off the list side and at times forget to add in the fun things that kids connect with.  We do these sort of things, just not as frequently as I would like. 

So far in the 5 Days of Bringing Books to Life we have talked about cooking with books, building things that we've read about,  fun ways to do "book reports," and dramatize it.

I think I saved the best for last!  One of the very most fun things to do after reading a book is to make a craft or art project out of it.  There are so many great books out there that make a great spring board for a craft/ art project.  Here are some suggestions:

Picture Source

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - You could make one of those caterpillars out of an egg carton, one from paper, or a balloon painted caterpillar (this is really cool!). 

Make Way for Ducklings - The kids could make hand print ducks, ones with feathers or one from a paper plate.

The Little House - They could draw a picture of each of the four seasons just like in the book.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie - After reading this one you can make a toilet paper roll mouse, instead of putting cheese in his hand make him a brown paper cookie.  Why not make a cute little felt mouse puppet or even one out of pipe cleaners.   

Good Night Moon - you and the kids could make a diorama of one of the pages of the book.

The Snowy Day - Draw falling snow on dark blue paper with white chalk.  Use use cotton balls for snowmen and snow on the ground.  Make snowflake cut outs.

American Girl Books - many of the girls in this series also have a craft book to go along with the time period of their stories, we have found these at the library.

Picture Source

General ideas that would work for most any book:

• Let the children draw or paint a picture from the book and then frame it.  I have found some decent black frames at the dollar store to frame my kids art work. 
• Notebooking can be a fun way to keep track of all of the children's drawings for all the books they have read in a school year.
• They can make a diorama of a scene in the book. 
• Making paper bag puppets or sock puppets of characters in the book would be lots of fun. 
• If the kids are making a picture from an illustrated book encourage them to use the same technique that the artist used.  If the artist used watercolors allow then to try the same.  We have some fun picture books where each picture is made up of different scraps and textures of paper and fabric, kids would love to try to do this too. 
• There are so many great ideas online and on Pinterest, it is pretty easy to find a craft to go along with a book. 
• Still looking for ideas, you might want to check your library for Storybook Art by MaryAnn Kohl and Art Through Children's Literature by Debi Englebaugh.

It has been lots of fun writing the 5 Days of Bringing Books to Life Series, thanks for following along this week!

 5 days, 65 bloggers, 325 blog posts! Check out what others on the TOS Crew are writing about for the 5 Days of Series here.

Do you incorporate arts and crafts into books you have read with the kids?

Bringing Books to Life - Dramatize It!

This is my 4th post this week for the 5 Days of Series that the TOS Crew is hosting.  So far in the 5 Days of Bringing Books to Life we have talked about cooking with books, building things that we've read about and fun ways to do "book reports."  Today I want to talk about dramatizing books we've read and things we are studying.  

Let's just say that you and your kids just finished reading Detectives in Togas or about Romans in general, it would be lots of fun to do as the Romans did.  Dress in togas, act like a Roman, eat like a Roman, with your hands while laying down!  I bet your kids will never forget the day they all dressed in Togas (sheets) and had a Roman Feast!

After finishing a family read a loud, allow your children to put on a play of the book that they have just read.  This would be a great for the family to do on a Friday night.  Don't forget to invite grandparents, family and friends.  My kids love to do little plays for their daddy and I, we are usually greeted by an usher who takes our tickets and shows us to our seats.

As I have mentioned in the last couple of posts, we have just about finished studying nights.  Can you guys guess what my boys have been dressing up as ALL WEEK LONG?  Knights!  Back in October when the dollar store had their costumes for sale I scooped up about $10 worth of "armor" for my boys.  I knew we were going to be studying knights and they would be needing some gear!  Alpha Boy has been bugging me patiently waiting for us to study knights all year.  Not only has he been dressing like a knight all week, I think everyone in our neighborhood has been dubbed Sir Such-n-such!  This child WILL remember studying knights, because he was one.

Another thing my kids like to do is a little Thanksgiving play.  My kids love the story of the Pilgrims.  Every year we take the week before Thanksgiving to study them.  My children rehearse all week long to do the play for us.  They make costumes, some of which are stapled together instead of sewn - but we won't talk about that : )  Lord willing, one day they will be sewing them!  Anyway, the point is, the kids really get into this.  When I allow them to just do, they go and do!  They even take popcorn kernels and paper fish and do the whole scene of the Indians teaching the Pilgrims how to plant.  They really enjoy acting out the new things that they learn each year.

Here are some ideas to dramatize books at home:

• Play the part, have a feast or meal to represent the book you've read.
• Let them make a video of either people, action figures or Legos to act out the book or a scene from it.
• Make a costume!  Pull out your staple gun, glue gun or sewing machine and go to town!  All those craft supplies that you are to busy to use now that you have a house fun of kids- hand'em over to the kids and they will make great use out of them - trust me on this.  FYI: Tin Foil and Cardboard could help to make a sweet looking knight's costume.
• Give them a video camera and let one of them be a news reporter interviewing their siblings to get the facts of "what just happened."
• A play, simple or elaborate either will do!
• Rent the movie (this counts, right?) and compare it to the book.  Movies definitely give kids a  visual.  We just read about Robin Hood and then borrowed the cartoon version from the library.  Just today we watched one of the Nest Family Videos about Marco Polo and tomorrow we will read about him in Story of the World. 

I believe that when children are given the opportunity to recreate and dramatize what they have learned or read, then it reinforces what they have learned.   I just feel like dramatizing helps what they have just learned to stick to their little brains so much better! 

5 days, 65 bloggers, 325 blog posts! Check out what others on the TOS Crew are writing about for the 5 Days of Series here.

Do your kids dramatize what they are studying? 

Any fun new ideas?

Bringing Books to Life - Write It!

One of the standard run of the mill things to do after reading a book is to do a book report, right? A regular old book report sounds a little bor-ing!  Why not have a little fun and focus on the joy of writing, especially in the elementary and middle school years.  I am not saying to not correct, teach and guide children in writing, just have a little fun with it.  Adding a WOW-Factor or a little pazzaz is a great way to Bring Books to Life!

Here are some ideas to spice up book reports:

• Instead of a book report why not allow the kids to write a song, rap or poem.  My kids have really enjoyed doing this.  Once they have completed their song and sung it to me two things usually happen 1) I see what they have learned and 2) we all usually have a good laugh and a smile!
• Have you tried lapbooking or notebooking?  We notebook, ALOT!  They usually have a page that they have drawn or colored from what we have read for Bible, history and science.  We also like to do this as we are reading through a book.  There are tons of FREE lapbooking and notebooking pages to get you started on Homeschool Share, which is one of my FAVORITE websites BTW!
• How about allowing the kids to take what they know from the book they've just read and write a sequel or even a different ending. 
• There is a wonderful little book called The Creative Teacher, that I borrowed it from the library.  It has wonderful ideas in there for creative book reports.  One of my favorites is making a Book Report Sandwich.  Basically, you take pages that are shaped like bread, lettuce, tomato, cheese, mayo, and ham to build a report.  Each piece represents a different part of the story like title & author, plot, characters, etc.  Here is a Book Report Sandwich Maker and a Book Report Sandwich template to get you started.
• Another great idea that I got from The Creative Teacher was to make a book report puppet.  You start by taking a brown lunch bag and then make a face out of contruction paper or card stock that "resembles" the main character and glue it on.  For the arms and legs the child would write different parts of the story like the plot, character, setting, etc.  Then for the "main body" you can illustrate the front of the book on the paper bag.  I thought this was pretty cool!
• Let them draw a picture or a comic strip.  How about letting them design a board game around a book.
• They could pretend that they are the character of the story and write a few diary entries as the character.
• Writing a newspaper article about the story would be fun.  They could be the head reporter!

There are sooo many ways to make writing fun!

In case you missed them, there are tow other posts so far in the 5 Days of Bringing Books to Life series, Books in the Kitchen and Build It!

5 days, 65 bloggers, 325 blog posts! Check out what others on the TOS Crew are writing about for the 5 Days of Series here.

What do you do to make writing more fun?