Every family should have a copy of this book on their hard drive. Bruce Van Patter’s creative writing inspirations are tried and true across the globe, having helped thousands of students and teachers. With an e-book targeted for homeschoolers, Sparks is truly an indispensable resource with a year full of writing prompts to get your students crafting fun written works.
Sparks is not intended to cover the “nuts and bolts” of writing; rather it is about having kids get excited about writing, and letting them have fun with it.
The process begins with a writing prompt – in which the student(s) will need to brainstorm ideas, with guidance from the teacher. (This by the way, would make an awesome addition to a homeschool co-op.)
Year One, has writing prompts that focus on odd but real holidays and anniversaries. They are strategically placed in a time frame from September to May so that you can seasonally write about them during the weeks that they actually occur.
Each of the prompts has a goal in mind. While most of them are narrative writing, you will also find analogy, how-to, descriptive and persuasive writing assignments as well.
These prompts work well because Bruce Van Patter understands that for many kids, writing needs to be fun in order to be an engaging activity. The prompts contain funny visuals that really hit the mark with kids, and turn the wheels in their brains to send them in a creative direction.
The result in our home was by far the best writing Genius has produced all year. Her narrative based on the “Unique Names Day” prompt was packed with both creativity and passion.
What so impressed me about this curriculum, was how much writing we accomplished based on a single prompt. What started as a character narrative in the above case, blossomed into a short story. And the other prompts we used, produced the same effect of additional writing. If you have more than one child working on the prompt, I imagine you would have completely different results and interpretations from each one of them.
Sparks, which is adaptable for grades 1-8, is a great way to shake up the writing in your homeschool, taking the writing off the paper and inspiring each student’s own unique creativity and style.
Sparks as well as other creative writing resources are available at Bruce Van Patter’s website located at http://www.brucevanpatter.com and the store front at http://www.brucevanpatter.com/store.
Tammy’s blog is located at Three Different Directions. She has many reviews of different products (many of them homeschool curriculum) there. She is also known to be having a giveaway on occasion! Click the “review” or “giveaway” links at the top of her blog to find them.
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