Archive for the ‘Living Literature’ Category

Living Literature: Folktales, Myths, and Storytelling

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Use folktales, myths, and storytelling to teach:

  • grammar,
  • punctuation,
  • spelling,
  • and literary devices.

Check out the hand-selected literature guides below (picked for you!).

Just scroll to your child’s age, select a title, and go on a literary adventure!

For Ages 8-14

Dart (ages 8–10) 

Arrow (ages 11–12)

Boomerang (ages 13–14) 

For Littles

Quill (ages 5–7)

Develop pre-literacy skills in reading, writing, and math with your younger children! 

Want more recommendations based on setting, time period, or theme?

Check out our handy Search and Sort spreadsheet and dive down the storytelling rabbit hole!

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Try It: Book Hooks!

Brave Writer Try It Book Hooks

Looking for a fun way to introduce “opening hooks” to your kids? Keep reading!

The most famous opening hook in children’s literature comes from Charlotte’s Web.

“Where’s Papa going with that ax?”

Startling, right? Do you want to know what happens next?

That’s the power of a great opening hook—it compels you to keep reading!

See if any other standouts are in your home library. Rank your favorites!

Book Hooks

  1. Collect a stack of 10 books.
  2. Open them one at a time.
  3. Take turns reading the opening lines aloud.
  4. Vote on which is the most compelling and which is the least compelling.
  5. Rank all 10 in order.
  6. Discuss why the most compelling is so good.
  7. Revise! How might you change the least compelling to make it better?

TIP: If you’ve done this before, try it with nonfiction books—or movies (watch the first few minutes).

Writing depends on hooking readers. Remember to hook your readers when you write!

If you try it, let us know how it goes! Share on social with the #bravewriterlifestyle hashtag.

All ‘Try It’ Activities

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Discover why writing is the key to all of learning!

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Brave Writer Book Shop

Brave Writer Book Shop

You love books and we love books!

We’re excited we’ve found a way to make building your library easier!

Check out our online book shop!

If you notice that a title is not yet listed in the store, it is likely it hasn’t been added yet. We are adding titles as quickly as we can.

Thanks for your patience while we make this a great place for you!

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Reading Aloud: Connecting to Life Itself

Brave Writer Reading Aloud

Reading aloud is more than getting through the chapters to the end. Reading to your children is a chance for them to experience you—your values, your priorities, your heartfelt connection to life itself.

My daughter Johannah called me from college. “That’s why you cried,” she said.

Johannah had always wondered why I couldn’t get through the end of Charlotte’s Web without leaking tears. It’s that final sentence. It gets me every time.

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.”

Charlotte was both—sob! I’m all choked up again.

When Johannah was a child, this line seemed like a matter-of-fact statement about Charlotte. Johannah wondered what feelings I was having that she wasn’t. As a newly minted college student, Johannah reread the book to find out. Cue adulthood, and she experienced a different reaction to those legendary lines. She saw their poignancy, the subtle way E.B. White affirmed writers for their craft, and the power of loyalty in friendship until death. Values—she now understood—demonstrated in my tears, a decade earlier.

When we read to our kids, we aren’t just conveying words or a narrative. Our living, breathing reactions make impressions too. We:

  • show an appreciation for courage or hardship,
  • laugh at the plays on words,
  • smile with delight at alliterative phrases,
  • demonstrate surprise or moral outrage.

Our children, listening along, take in the story and adult response—both. Even when they don’t quite “get it yet.” These shared experiences with you form the bedrock of their values.

Next time you feel a little chagrined by your inability to read without tears streaming down your cheeks—let them flow. Let your children see the good, compassionate, sensitive feeling the story evokes from you.

That’s half the lesson.

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Elementary Writing: Nonfiction Books

Brave Writer Online Classes

It’s here! The online class you requested for your littles.

Elementary Writing: Nonfiction Books!

Preheat the oven. Add the flour, crack the egg. You’re halfway through making a cake. 

BRRRRRING! Your timer goes off. Wipe off your hands, it’s time to do laundry!

Midway through folding the soft, warm towels… BRRRING! Stop, it’s time to send that email.

What is all this random dinging, you ask? It’s the bell, telling you it’s time to move on so you can get through your to-do list! 

Sound ridiculous? It’s how most of us did our schooling when we were younger! 

  • BELL! Math
  • BELL! English literature
  • BELL! Eat your lunch
  • BELL! Science
  • BELL! History
  • BELL! You can go home.

It’s part of a system that needs to accommodate hundreds of kids. Do you need such a system in your home? I’d say not! (By the way, other models of schooling ditch the compartments too: Montessori, Waldorf, Forest Schools…)

Real-life learning doesn’t get parceled out into different subjects. The most effective learning is the type where as many different connections are made as possible. 

You have that advantage. Your KIDS have that advantage.

We see that opportunity and we want to help you use it, especially with your youngest learners.

Enter Elementary Writing: Nonfiction Books!

Reading and writing doesn’t always need to be fiction. In fact, we can make even more sparks and connections by bringing in other subjects.

For this online class, topics can be anything that interests: science, art, cooking, history—the sky’s the limit! 

Why this class is a deal:

  • This is a family class with one tuition for the whole gang. 
  • YOU learn a lot since you’ll check in with your personal coach each week to get ideas about how to talk and write about the topic in a way that matches your kids’ natural stages of growth in writing.
  • Two-for-one. Three-for-one! You can take this class and count it toward both writing and whatever other subjects your nonfiction explorations take you.
  • It’s a deep dive. Cross-curricular. Interest-led. The type that can’t be done in traditional school.  

Join us!

Brave Writer Online Classes

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