summer journal: writing
July 2nd, 2013
This summer I’m trying to get my kids to do a bit of reading and writing everyday. The reading bit is no problem–I have a heathy addiction to the library. But I wasn’t sure what I could do for writing practice.
Turns out my children love worksheets, or in internet speak, printables. I am not a teacher and have no idea what my kids officially need, but I know what they like. They are engaged and putting pencil to paper. I think that is good enough for summertime.
I started a printables board on pinterest to keep track of the good ones I come across. Here are the ones that we keep coming back to:
for my 3 year old: You can customize this printable to say whatever you like. He’s just starting to learn how to write his name, so I plug that in most of the time and he loves it. The day I plug in P O O P to that worksheet is the day I become the funniest mother in the entire world.
for my 6 year old: This is not the most exciting printable, but it is my six year old’s favorite. There is a space on top for drawing or pasting a picture and enough room on the bottom for a super short story.
for my 7 year old: My daughter loves to read, but sometimes she reads so fast I’m not sure the all words have time to reach her brain. So I’ve started giving her book report sheets to fill out. She likes the ones where you get to draw a picture. I like these printable book reports that focus on separate things: one for characters, one for researching the author, there is even one for writing a new ending!
I’ve only just scratched the surface, I’m sure. If you have any suggestions for writing work or cool printables you’ve found–please share! My kids will thank you!
Thanks Meg! I´m pinning this post as a reminder. I have three kids of exactly the same age as yours. You´ve saved me lots of research time :-)
We love doing this activity book (can´t remember the title) where on each sheet you´re asked to complete a drawing or finish a story or write up a letter to an alien! It´s so much fun
María
The Anti-colouring book by Striker & Kimmel
This is great timing. I have been trying to do the same but I almost have to trick them into writing….it cannot look like school work. So I have been trying to get them to do a diary page with a little story and a drawing, it works sometimes. I am going to check out your pinterest board.
Love it! I am striving to get everyone to write daily here as well. The Rip the Page book is awesome too.
How cool are you guys! These look great, I have a healthy library addiction too-can’t help but feel awesome when you walk out of there with a million books all for free!
I’m joining in and doing a summer journal post later this afternoon. :)
This is great! I’ve been wanting to do the same with my little gal – keep her in learning mode during the summer, since she’s suuuuuuper close to reading and very interested in it right now.
I have a similar pinterest board, and one I thought was fun is this blank comic book printable – i drew just simple squares for my 8 year old nephew once and he totally loved making his own comic book, but this is even better: http://pinterest.com/pin/160018592982856657/
We printed that one out a few times too! My daughter’s comics are weird and involved and she is waaaay into them!
Have you checked out Piggie & Gerald books? They might be hard for her, but they are a great (and funny) introduction to reading.
Great tips for writing…here’s a glimpse at our summer journal this week.
http://sowingbythesea.com/2013/07/02/summer-journal-building-boats/
This is very timely! I was just saying that I need to get her writing this Summer. She really needs handwriting practice AND I love seeing the stories she comes up with. Thanks for saving me the legwork!
herringbone rug! yay for printables!
TinTin has been big in our house recently, so when you pinned that comic book page I thought we’d give it a try. My six year old was occupied for HOURS every day for a week.
When I was a Girl Scout leader, my young girls LOVED to do word search puzzles. you can customize them (http://www.discoveryeducation.com/free-puzzlemaker/?CFID=505443&CFTOKEN=15603722). There’s really a ton of different kinds of puzzles you can customize (using words for that day’s activities, friends, personal likes/dislikes, foods, you name it!).
Text art – google it, it’s great fun for all ages (like this octopus: http://lionart.net/?p=1330)
fun fun fun
Bought a pre-school workbook (by Mead) at Target last week and my son (turns 4 in August) likes it so far. We do 2 or 3 pages together a few times a week. He really likes the pages with objects to cut out because it means he gets to use kid scissors!! I’ve nearly lost a finger a few times holding the cutting page for him, but he’s completely pumped about scissors — so funny. I have a summer journal post in the works, so I’ll write more about our summer activities. Thanks for the inspiration.
Not exactly the same thing, but Annie from Bird and Little Bird (http://www.birdandlittlebird.com) and her e-magazine Alphabet Glue (http://alphabetglue.com) have some great reading and writing activities. Not sure if you’d seen those, but they might be worth a look when you need something new!
[…] summer reading & writing for the kids […]
hey meg! i’ve been using your name printable to teach our four year old to write her name. my kids would also love p o o p. i was working with my son on grammer and asked him to tell me some nouns. his were: poop, barf and diarrhea. lovely.
i was going to tell you about the journals we’re using and loving but i knew i’d be writing a blog post about it along with some other stuff we’ve been into and i didn’t want to be too linky-linky in my comment. here it is in one place – :)
http://www.stitched-together.com/2013/07/stuff-we-like.html
they have helped immensely with my almost-4 year old learning to write his name. I love all the project you are working on with the kids–thank you for sharing!