A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Things We Love: Brave Writer

Last year writing in my home was met with tantrums. It was killing our homeschool. Master Builder has a motor delay. She never crawled and has little upper body strength. This makes writing painful physically and mentally. You add into that the expectations of a mom who used to dream of being a writer and graduated at the top of her class and you will have a recipe for disaster. I was ready to throw in the towel last year but then at the end of year party someone asked if we knew about Brave Writer, because we seemed like we would be a “Brave Writer Family”. I had never heard of it before but was blown away by how much it resembled my philosophy of learning-(which I myself had lost sight of in last year’s disappointments). ~Jamie, Today’s Field Trip

women who inspire :: Julie Bogart

an easy way to add a bit of poetry into your homeschool is to institute a weekly Poetry Tea.  just imagine gathering the children to a table loaded with cups of tea with milk, a little something sweet to eat, and a stack of poetry books.  you might read some favorites, then they might want to get in on the act too.  sounds wonderful, right?  we’ve got Julie Bogart of Brave Writer fame to thank! ~Kort, one deep drawer

And three posts from Tristan:

Most of Writing is About Relationship – What I Learned at a Brave Writer Seminar

Yesterday I took a little 3 hour drive down to Cincinnati for some teacher development. Julie Bogart of Brave Writer spent 3 lovely hours sharing and encouraging a group of moms and dads in this homeschooling journey…The focus of the seminar was writing but in my notes I have all sorts of nuggets of wisdom captured. As this blog is part journal I want to record them here. Hopefully you find something helpful as well! ~Tristan, Our Busy Homeschool

A Writing Project from Start to Finish with Brave Writer

Today I’m excited to share a writing piece from one of my children because it really showcases one way Brave Writer has impacted our homeschool. Makayla is my 13 year old 8th grader. She has some long-term writing projects going on including a novel and a group pass along story with several friends (you get the story for 3 days to write all you want, then pass it along to the next person).

The Poetry Teatime Where I Break Most of the Rules

When I first heard of doing poetry teatime as part of the Brave Writer Lifestyle I put it off because it would never match the ideal picture I see in my head. Last year I decided that I would no longer be paralyzed by my perfectionist tendencies. My children did not care if things were perfect, they simply wanted togetherness. Nowadays I move forward and enjoy our imperfect poetry teatimes, breaking most of the rules from my imagined ideal.

Image by Brave Writer mom, Tracey (cc) cropped/text added

Learning Ripples in Homeschool

Just as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water, the actions of individuals can have far-reaching effects. –Dalai Lama

“I love this quote from the Dalai Lama for many reasons and I’ve seen an application of it to learning. It began with writing. Writing is an area where variety is enjoyable.” ~Tristan, Our Busy Homeschool

What it takes to continue homeschooling

“In the last couple of years, I have often said, “Oh, I don’t read homeschooling books anymore” and “I don’t look for curriculum anymore.” I mean it has to stop somewhere, right? Someone will always be writing another book or presenting another curriculum. And I have so many books and guides and projects that I haven’t even used yet. I just keep telling myself to find something I already have and use it. And those thoughts come on the good days. On the not-so-good days, I just want to get through the checklists and see some completed workbook pages.” ~Two Culture Mom

VAHomeschoolers Conference 2014

“Julie Bogart has a well-deserved cult following in the homeschooling world. She homeschooled her five children, worked as a professional writer and created the popular “Brave Writer” series of language arts curriculum and online writing classes. She is an incredibly engaging speaker, so well-spoken, charming and funny. Some conference attendees just sat in her sessions alone for the entire conference!” ~Anne, ruly

We hope to share more roundups in the future! If you write about an aspect of the Brave Writer Lifestyle, let us know! Email your post’s url to Jeannette, our Social Media admin ([email protected]). Thanks!

Image by Brave Writer mom, Kirsti (cc)

Read how other homeschooling families implement the Brave Writer Lifestyle:

How We Use the Brave Writer Program Julie at Creekside Learning shares how her family uses Brave Writer in their homeschool. You can also enter to win one of our Poetry Guides in honor of National Poetry Month (contest ends May 2nd).

Brave Writer’s The Arrow “Last month we added Brave Writer’s The Arrow to our Language Arts studies and I’ve noticed the difference in our homeschool already. We’re having so much fun with “The Brave Writer lifestyle”. Our own language as well as our awareness of language around us – written, spoken and performed – is heightened. Here are some examples of what we’ve done.” ~Jess, You, Me and B

A Week of Bravewriter’s Partnership Writing “It’s Monday, and there’s just time to squeeze in some copy work before heading off to circus class. I choose a sentence from our current read aloud, Neil Armstrong: Young Flyer and write it into Yoshi’s book. He copies it out. Time taken: five minutes…if you don’t count the wriggling…” ~Melissa, Lovely Things

Poetry Tea Time “This year on Fridays we have added Poetry Tea Time to our schedule. This has been a fun way to make sure we are enjoying poetry every week.” ~Living and Learning

Homeschool Freakout Day “Recently, on a mailing list I read, a mom posted about how she was freaking out about homeschooling. It’s the same feelings every homeschooler has, and heck, probably most parents have: that their kids aren’t learning what they should, that they are unhappy, that the kids will be left behind, and so forth.” ~Katie, Home is Possible

We hope to share more roundups in the future! If you write about an aspect of the Brave Writer Lifestyle, let us know! Email your post’s url to Jeannette, our Social Media admin ([email protected]). Thanks!

Image by Brave Writer mom, Consuelo

Read how other homeschooling families implement the Brave Writer Lifestyle:

Teaching Writing in Our Homeschool with Brave Writer “Many writing curricula come at writing from what I think of as a ‘teacher’ mindset instead of a ‘writer’ mindset.” ~Tristan, Our Busy Homeschool

Partnership vs. Performance Learning “In Partnership Writing, author Julie Bogart explains how we as parents have no problems helping our child with other schoolwork but feel that if we help our child with writing it then no longer becomes “theirs.” This is a great thought, however, if you are anything like me, this has been an issue in areas outside of writing as well! Partnership Writing has inspired a whole new thought process in me on partnership learning!” ~Nicole, One Magnificent Obsession

The Homeschool Chronicles {Brave Writer} “I want to be a brave writer. I want my kids to be brave writers. Apparently writing can be useful (hello, blogging!), so I absolutely want writing in our homeschool to be about authentic communication, to be so much more than essay outlining, to have a liveliness not found in diagramming sentences.” ~Rachel, Stitched in Color

Unschooling Plans for English and Maths “I’m intending to use Brave Writer’s Daily Writing Tips: Volume 1 for inspiration, especially as a springboard to write alongside J(8) who has suddenly taught himself to spell (two years after we gave up spelling lessons and six months after we stopped his phonics programme. There’s a lesson for me there).” ~Lucinda, Navigating By Joy

Teaching Kids to Write – Sentence Order “In my head there is an ideal writing philosophy. Creating an enjoyment of writing is number one. Communicating thoughts and ideas should be the purpose. Grammar, spelling and punctuation are important, but focus on these writing topics discourages kids from writing.” ~jmommymom, Highhill Homeschool

We hope to share more roundups in the future! If you write about an aspect of the Brave Writer Lifestyle, let us know! Email your post’s url to Jeannette, our Social Media admin ([email protected]). Thanks!

Image by Brave Writer mom, Kristin (cc)