As soon as our kids pick up a pencil as wee little ones, we encourage them to write. We teach them their letters, how to spell their names, and other simple words. It comes as a shock to many people that I’ve chosen to hold off on using a writing curriculum in our homeschool until my son hit middle school age. But, hear me out. I have a good reason and I’m excited to share it with you.
I received this curriculum for free and was compensated for my time. All of my opinions expessed are the honest to goodness truth and I was not required to write a positive review.
Why wait until middle school for writing?
When my son was young, he had the best imagination when it came to writing. He’d craft the most adorable stories and wrote a few storybooks that I will probably save forever. When we were starting out homeschool journey and we tried using writing curriculum that came along with his language arts, that imagination quickly died. Where did my inspired writer go? It was no longer fun and become a chore.
So, we ditched writing for the better part of his elementary homeschool career. I decided now that he was in middle school, now would be a good time to pick it back up. This has proved to be the best move for him and our homeschool as a whole.
What we decided to use for our middle school writing curriculum
We chose to use WriteShop I as our middle school writing curriculum choice, and I couldn’t be happier. It is so incredibly user friendly on both the parents and child’s part. My favorite part has been that we can ease our way into it and truly use a schedule that works for us.
If you know me, you know we love our relaxed homeschool. I didn’t want to overwhelm myself or my kiddo with going from no formal writing curriculum to having to write every single day. With WriteShop, we can choose our own schedule and there’s no pressure.
They have lesson plans laid out to get through WriteShop I in one year, or options to even spread it out to last two or three years. This means that we can do writing two days a week and not feel bogged down by adding this into our schedule.
Writing curriculum that works for our relaxed homeschool
We’ve also loved that WriteShop has eased us into the process. My son isn’t expected to start the curriculum off by writing multiple paragraph assignments, like other writing curriculum I’ve seen for middle schoolers. His assignments have been short and sweet, but full of lessons to already learn how to improve his writing right from the get go.
We also received a copywork and dictation booklet that has excerpts from famous stories for him to write down. This made my Charlotte Mason loving heart happy, as I’ve loved using copywork with him in the past and this is something that is familiar to him.
The checklists included for the writing assignments have been great, as it helps my son become independent in his writing. He can go over the checklists himself when he’s all finished with an assignment to see if he’s adding everything he needs to before handing his paper over to me. I also have my own checklists so I know what on Earth I’m doing when it comes to heading his papers. Total win for this homeschool mom.
An amazing chance to win WriteShop for your homeschool!
WriteShop is giving away some of their awesome curriculum! One lucky winner will receive their choice of Writeshop I Basic Set or Writeshop II Student Workbook, AND their choice of the video couse set of WriteShop I or II! The giveaway closes 2/24/2020, so enter now for your chance to win.
WriteShop I has been awesome for our middle school writing curriculum!
We’ve loved using WriteShop I as our introduction to using writing curriculum in the middle school years. It is setting up an awesome foundation for my son in his writing and giving us both the tools we need along the way.
If you haven’t checked out WriteShop yet, I really don’t know what you’re waiting for! They have curriculum for all ages, elementary through high school. So, for those of you who choose to start writing earlier, there’s curriculum for you. And, for those of you who are looking for an all star writing program for your high schooler, there’s a writing curriculum for you, too.
Have you used WriteShop, too? Or, do you have any questions about writing in middle school? Drop your comments below or in my online homeschool community!
More homeschool Language Arts resources can be found by clicking the image below!
Can I ask what LA you were using where you found your son’s imagination died with the writing Curriculum?
We had tried a handful of language arts curriculum over the years. They were all more traditional in approach and didn’t leave room for our own schedule, creativity, etc. I don’t want to name names and bash any particular companies, but I will say we aren’t a fan of a lot of traditional homeschool method curriculum.
Thank you for sharing that you waited to start writing curriculum. I have been so torn on doing writing with my 3rd grader. Its pure torture for her and very unproductive for our homeschool time. I’ve kept it simple this year, some dictating and copying, and sentence structure type lessons. But after reading this review its made my choice much easier to continue to wait on a writing curriculum. This one sound like what I would choose. Thank you.