Writing with a Fifth Grader

This year so far has been a blast with my daughter’s fifth graders English and writing assignments. We went with Rod and Staff English 5 this year. You can find it Here. I honestly bought mine off eBay. I LOVE buying used curriculum, but that's another post for another day. I love it for a few reasons. It is Bible based but not overly done. Some of the sentences are bible verses or things about Jesus so Christ is in our are daily work. I want Christ to be in everything we do but not to where the kids get overwhelmed with it. A good balance is needed, in my opinion. Secondly, I love how it gets to the point. We don't have to spend all day on the lesson, but we do need to learn. So, we do an oral review; move onto the lesson, and she finished with independent work. This has a writing assignment along with a challenge exercise for her to complete if she wants to earn bonus points for our class store. So Rod and Staff has won me over. Not the most fun thing we do, but how much fun can grammar be most the time? School House Rock memories are coming back to me! Who remembers these?

We are now about half way through the year and we have added in a wonderful book my daughter loves to read called Spilling Ink. It is written to speak to kids about their writing style and characters, so its fun to read for my daughter, but also she is learning how to develop her characters and let them speak to her inside her writing. It has great creative ideas to help her dig deeper into her writing. 

Also, I found a writing contest for her to enter in, first prize get a $50.00 gift card to Amazon! Along with other prizes like the Creative writer you can buy on Amazon. That motivated her to write a story 1,000 words or less and it had a writing prompt for her to start the story out with. I can't wait to hear back the winner!! So whether you are digging into grammar or trying to find great writing lessons out there, follow what your heart and your child tells you are right. I have really been enjoying my writing with a fifth grader! How about you? Anything you love about your child's english?