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A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Thoughts from my home to yours

Archive for the ‘Writing Exercises’ Category

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7-Day Writing Blitz HIGHLIGHTS

Brave Writer 7-Day Writing Blitz Highlights

Brave Writer’s 7-Day Writing Blitz upends the dynamics of writing and invites your kids to play with words in brand new ways!

Thousands of homeschooling families around the world launched their writing programs this year with the free 7- Day Writing Blitz Guide as a launch pad for creativity. These parents led their children into a creative romp with words that culminated in sharing their writing as a gift!

Kids wrote words everywhere! Words were scrawled on mirrors, pavement, fingers, t-shirts, and dishes. Kids wrote with chalk, paint, mustard, markers, and lipstick. Our Brave Writers wrote sitting in trees and blanket forts, cuddled with dogs and even hanging upside down!

You can use the Blitz any time you’d like to bust through boredom and recast the writing experience.

Each day of the blitz entices young writers to throw out their stale habits and embark on a new relationship with words: whether you trade the pencils for glitter pens, scribble on fence posts, or mash up a couple of poems to create a brand-new verse. The sky’s the limit!

Take a look at what thousands of children like yours did in our first blitz! Use the hashtag #bw7dayblitz when you share your children’s writing on social media so we can celebrate with you!

At the end of the 7 days, print certificates for your kids and celebrate! Your writing life is about to change. Can’t wait to see how! Download the 7-Day Writing Blitz Guide now. It’s free—just like writing.

Posted in Writing Exercises | Comments Off on 7-Day Writing Blitz HIGHLIGHTS

7-Day Writing BLITZ!

Brave Writer's 7-Day Writing Blitz

Introducing the 7-Day Writing Blitz!

What is a 7-Day Writing Blitz? It’s about EXPLODING the dynamics around language and helping your kids take that deep plunge into writing in an invitational, fun, enchanted way. Because writing is not about performing for school; it’s about life and self-expression.

For seven straight days, your kids will write, but it’s going to surprise them. Our FREE PDF comes with seven days of manageable writing projects appropriate for all writing ages. These daily prompts will encourage your kids to

  • play with language,
  • use unconventional writing utensils and surfaces,
  • and cultivate good writing habits.

Also in our free packet we give you directions for how to build a Writing Blitz Jet Pack (pictured in the image above) to help you enchant the writing experience for your kids.Brave Writer's 7-Day Writing Blitz

Download the guide HERE

And if your child decides they want to change the prompts? Excellent! There are no rules in Brave Writer. This is about being brave.

 

#BW7DayBlitz

Posted in Activities, Writing Exercises | Comments Off on 7-Day Writing BLITZ!

Nature Journaling

Best of the Brave Writer Blog: Nature Journaling

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful. ~e.e. cummings

Nature Journaling is an important part of the Brave Writer Lifestyle. Turn the exploration of the great, messy outdoors into a joyful writing opportunity!

The Basics

  • Walk together.
  • Collect little rocks, leaves, twigs, mosses, acorns, flowers, and feathers.
  • Bring them home.
  • Set a few of them on a large sheet of white paper in the center of the table.
  • Using drawing pencils and paper, sketch one or more of the items.
  • Then record a few details about the object or the day. One good sentence about the color, or texture or the memory of collecting it or what it looks like, or what it reminds the writer of, is perfect.

Branch Out!

Here are three blog posts full of tips that will enhance your nature journaling experience.

If You are New to Nature Journaling

Nature Journaling Wherever You Are

Writing Exercise: Make Your Nature Walk a Color Walk!

Also, Brave Writer offers an online class each spring and fall that is designed to make nature journaling a natural part of your life. Click on the image below to learn more.

Nature Journaling

Posted in Activities, Brave Writer Lifestyle, Nature Walks, Writing Exercises | Comments Off on Nature Journaling

Ten 30-Second Writing Exercises

Ten 30-second writing exercises
Here are ten writing exercises that will take about thirty seconds each. The aim is not to create a masterpiece or change your entire writing life–the aim is to write for at least thirty seconds.

Also, for children in the Jot It Down or Partnership Writing stages, parents should feel free to transcribe their kids’ thoughts for 30-seconds.

Pick an exercise, set the timer, and GO!

1. One Sense

Sit down and pick ONE of your senses–sight, smell, hearing, taste, or touch. Then describe everything you feel with that sense, right now. Do you see the sky out of the window and your dogs on the sofa? Do you hear the clock ticking and traffic outside? Whichever sense you choose, write down as much detail as possible in thirty seconds. Go!

2. Song

Put on a song you love and write as the first thirty seconds play. How does it make you feel? Happy, sad, moved, inspired, impassioned? Why do you like it? Do you have strong memories linked with that song? Jot it down.

3. One word

Open a dictionary, close your eyes, pick a random word, and write about it. Go on, see how much you can write about one word in thirty seconds. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s great or silly or you think it’s a beautiful word that everyone should use in every conversation. Write it!

4. Special memory

Pick a favorite memory, a day that was special to you. Why was it special? What did you do? Who was there with you? What was the best moment? List those out.

5. Sum it up

Think about the previous day of your life and sum it up in one phrase. Something like “Best day ever,” “A total drag,” or “Dull but productive.” Then do the same for the day before yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, until you run out of time.

6. Alteration

Write a sentence of five words. Now quickly change the sentence one word at a time. For example:

“I love my fluffy cat.”
“I love my fluffy slippers.”
“I lost my fluffy slippers.”
“I miss my fluffy slippers.”

See where it takes you in half a minute!

7. A conversation

Pick up two nearby objects, put them side by side, and write a short conversation between the two of them. What would your pencil case say to your hairbrush if they were in love? What would an argument between your pen and your eraser be like? Or imagine that they met for the first time.

8. Forward in time

What do you plan to do as soon as you’re done writing? Then what after that? And after that? Keep going till the timer stops.

9. One letter

Pick the letter of the alphabet that your name begins with then write down ten different words that begin with that letter. Give your vocabulary a 30-second workout!

10. It’s a fact

Write a fact about yourself–the more interesting, the better. Then change ONE word. For example, “I love wearing hats” could become “I hate wearing hats,” or “I love wearing earrings.” Once you’ve got your new statement, write down a name you like that’s not yours. That is the name of a character you’ve just created.

Enjoy! Later you might expand some of these freewrites into writing projects.

Brave Writer Online Class Middle School Writing Projects

Tags: writing exercises
Posted in Writing Exercises | Comments Off on Ten 30-Second Writing Exercises

A word play tip

Does it smell good?Image by Savannah Lewis (cc)

Ask your kids to find the nuance differences between synonyms.

Example— all the words for “smell”

Smell
Fragrance
Aroma
Odor
Scent
Stench
Perfume
Bouquet

How are they used? Can you use ‘odor’ for flowers? Can you use ‘scent’ for a skunk’s spray?

Can ‘aroma’ be paired with anything besides food? Why or why not?

What’s the difference between a ‘bouquet’ and ‘perfume’? Which is lovelier, easier to breathe in?

How much worse is a ‘stench’ than an ‘odor’? Can you think of two different items and why one would be paired with ‘stench’ and another with ‘odor’?

This is how you build vocabulary far better than using a workbook that makes kids identify definitions or put the words correctly into sentences.

Focus on complexity—nuances, subtlety, relationships, contexts, situations, habits, contradictions in language. These practices help the words “stick” and enrich a child’s writing as you find that some of them will “pop through” to their own work.

Cross-posted on facebook.

Posted in Writing about Writing, Writing Exercises | Comments Off on A word play tip

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