Journaling

One thing that I think is really important in the elementary grades is exposing children to writing. Some really great teachers I know start their Kindergarten students journaling from the first day of school. It can even be a few letters or scribbles with a picture narrative if they can't write letters yet. The school Grace attended for K-2nd didn't have Kindergarten students write journals until 2nd semester, but I thought that way too late to start introducing her to daily writing.

I have continued the importance of journaling in my homeschool. These are just a few of the zillion awesome writing resources out there. Most can be used for different ages as well, this is just when I personally use them.

Kindergarten-

This year for Zoe is my 1st year teaching Kindergarten. When we pulled our kids to homeschool, Grace was going into 3rd and Cian skipped Kindergarten and just went into 1st. I have been pinning, searching and reading the last few days to find some journal prompts I want to use with Zoe this year. I found two on Teachers Pay Teachers that I really liked.

Journaling Prompts by the Moffatt girls for Sept-Dec

 (and since we begin school in August, I got a fun summer one)

Summer Writing Prompts by Emily Ames

1st Grade

A super sweet homeschooling friend, (with a really cool name), let me have her binder of reproducible K-2 journal prompts by month. I use it with 1st grade.

2nd Grade

Last year, Cian used a set of free writing prompts called, "If I Were...." from a google search and also I use a scholastic book called, First Writing Prompts, that is for 1st - 3rd grade. I also bought a book I haven't used yet, but will add in for Zoe, called: Complete Writing Lessons for the Primary Grades. I bought it for Cian, for 3rd, but it looks too easy, so will save for 2nd grade.

3rd Grade

I have bought some really awesome e-books from Scholastic that have the journals ready to print. Cian will be using all FOUR of these this year:

•  Quick and Fun Writing Activities Just for Young Learners by Martin Lee and Marcia Miller
• 40 Writing Prompts with Graphic Organizers by Stefan Czarnecki
• Comic-Strip Writing Prompts by Karen Kellaher
• 50 World Record Writing Prompts by Justin McCory Martin

4th Grade

Grace wanted to do creative writing instead of structured writing, so I let her do that last year, but am sure I will add in a little more structure for Cian next year. I haven't tried these two out yet, but so that I REMEMBER I already bought them from Scholastic, lol, I'm going to list them here:

• 145 Wonderful Writing Prompts from Favorite Literature by Susan Ohanian
• 50 Writing Lessons that Work by Carol Rawlings Miller

5th Grade

This year Grace will be journaling 3 days a week from, 1001 Writing Prompts for Students.

She will also be exploring the creative writing again, but with a book called, The Creative Writer Level 1 by Boris Fishman.