Writing. Some kids love it and others don’t. It’s a key skill to be able to express yourself clearly, and it takes practice. That’s why today, we are suggesting three different notebooks your upper elementary kiddos should have and what they should be writing in each. You may want them to practice their writing skills daily, or a few times each week. Whatever you decide, your child should be writing in one of their notebooks daily.

1. Writer’s Notebook

• Copy work
• To learn rules of writing: spelling, grammar, proper sentence structure, etc…
• Express creativity and/or opinions through writing prompts
• Drafting new essays
• Editing
• Only takes 5-10 minutes a day

2. Reader’s Notebook

• Copy work
• Book or chapter summaries
• To learn skills of reading comprehension: visualization, making predictions, asking questions, etc…
• Rewrite a few sentences from a book replacing nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs with their own
• Create their own dictionary of new vocabulary words and define them
• Only takes 5-10 minutes a day

3. Journal

• Express opinions
• Share thoughts
• Can be prompted with a topic or not
• Clarify their understanding about a studied subject: science, nature, music, etc…
• Practice writing skills
• Only takes 5-10 minutes a day

Let us know what you think in the comments below. Do you use these notebooks in your homeschool? What’s your favorite way of helping kids practice writing?

Your Homework:

What’s a homeschool blog without a little homework?

• Determine which notebooks your kids need to better their writing skills
• Create a list of skills you’d like them to learn from the notebook(s)
• Get to work! Implement writing each day.