What favorite books will your kids write about in their journals?

Her favorite books to read right now are from our Fun Stories, Great Lessons Series. There are 10 different books in the series and she has devoured about half of them.

We don’t want to just read them though. They aren’t that kind of story. The values they teach are ones that I want her to dwell on and remember. That’s why this free printable is a great follow up activity.

How to Use the Free Printable Book Journal

My daughter is 8 so she can use this book journal on her own. If you have younger children, you can still use it! They can draw the picture and then dictate what they want you to write for them. You could also write what they want to say on a separate piece of paper and have them copy it into the journal as a copywork activity.

When we use the journal we might not work on this right after we ready the story. It could be a day or two after which really requires my daughter to recall the different parts from memory. Of course, we go back to the book if she can’t remember something. Your child might like to start out using it while they read or while you are reading to them.

Since she doesn’t get much practice writing in this form, it is a little more difficult for her. I help her with spelling and proper grammar. It’s great practice and the areas where she can draw in make this project fun and a keepsake too!

The Free Printable Book Journal has 8 half-pages that include: Cover, Favorite Part of the Story, Setting, Main Character, Other Characters, Beginning, Middle, and End. Put your email below to download.

How to Put Together Your Book Journal

I made this simple video to show you how to put the pages of the printable together so that they are in the right order. You can staple the pages together or sew them and get extra fine motor practice.

What stories would your children like to use their book journal for?

The post Free Printable Book Journal for Kids first appeared on True Aim.

While you want to be sure to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors throughout the fall season, there are many activities that your family will enjoy that your kids can write about after you arrive home! The best way to encourage your children to write is to allow them to write about their experiences. This fall take your kids on field trips that will give them something to write about! Writing may not come easy for your children, if that is the case try planning your fall family fun around these fun writing prompts!

FALL WRITING PROMPTS FOR KIDS

Fall Holiday Themed Writing Prompts

• If I Met Columbus
• What I Admire About Veterans
• If I Were Elected President
• What Thanksgiving Means to Me
• Questions I’d Ask a Presidential Nominee
• If I were a Pilgrim on the Mayflower
• Things I’m Thankful For
• What I’ve Learned About Pearl Harbor

Fall Themed Writing Prompts

• When the crisp fall air arrives I
• Why I love fall
• Fall campfires are amazing because
• When I go hiking I like to
• If I were a scarecrow I would
• Things I’d like to do this fall
• If I were a farmer I would
• My favorite fall activities
• When the leaves rustle in the wind I think
• My favorite memories from this fall
• Reasons I love leaf piles
• On fall camping trips I enjoy
• When we go apple picking I like to
• If I could go anywhere this fall I would go to
• I like to carve pumpkins because
• On a cool fall day I like to
• Before fall comes to an end I

These fun fall writing prompts are a great way to encourage your kids to share their thoughts and dreams with you! It can be an amazing experience reading what your children loved most about this season in their life, what they would ask people from the past, where they would like to go and what they would like to do!

I hope that these fall writing prompts are a resource that your children enjoy! Below you’ll find a link to set of printable notebooking pages featuring these writing prompts.

What are your favorite fall writing prompts?

The post 25 Fall Writing Prompts for Kids first appeared on True Aim.

1. Make words out of play dough.

Play dough provides a fun sensory experience, and a chance to really think about each letter before sculpting it!

2. Let them type

In our technology-driven world, typing is an important skill to have, and younger kids love to be part of it! Learn spelling words by typing them on the computer. The more often, the better; and the higher likelihood that they will stick!

3. Use magnetic trays

A popular budget-friendly trend includes using Dollar Store magnetic trays with magnetic alphabet letters. (or, you can hot glue magnets to ordinary letters) Jenae at I Can Teach My Child offers a great build-a-word magnetic tray tutorial!

4. LEGOs

LEGOs are a staple in nearly every American household. Use them to craft out spelling words!

5. Sing it!

You learned the alphabet to Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star, why not memorize sight words by song? This works especially well if you are switching up the lyrics to a well known song.

6. Get up and move!

Whether it be jumping jacks, hula hooping, bouncing a ball, jumping up and down, or running across the room – getting up and moving to different spelling words can help younger kids still be active in learning while releasing some energy!

7. Cheerios, beads, and other small objects

Spell different words with small objects, like Cheerios or beads. Creating letters provides a sensory experience on memorizing the different letter shapes.

8. Rainbow words

Grab a pack of crayons and write spelling words multiple times in different colors!

9. Shaving cream

Shaving cream is a favorite among early elementary teachers and parents alike – since it is relatively inexpensive, and has a soft, foam-y texture. Grab a bin, dump shaving cream inside, and let kids form letters with it!

10. Cut up magazines

Grab some old magazines (sometimes your local public library might let have old copies for free) and cut out individual letters, and paste them into your spelling words!

The post Top 10 Ways to Practice Spelling Words first appeared on True Aim.

Writing is a great winter time activity to use in your homeschool. Not all children enjoy writing, but there are ways to make it fun for everyone and using writing prompts in your homeschool is a great place to start!

Whether you have children that love to write or they are reluctant to write, they will have fun writing this winter with these fun winter writing prompts!

New Year Writing Prompts

• My new year outlook
• Things I’d like to do this year

Snow Themed Writing Prompts

• The magic of snowflakes
• If I were a snowman
• My favorite winter activity
• My favorite winter past time
• Why I love winter
• What I don’t like about winter
• If I could see the snow
• When I’m skiing on the mountain
• Ice skating makes me
• While I’m sledding I

Winter Holiday Writing Prompts

• If I could meet Martin Luther King Jr.
• My thoughts on Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech
• If I were the groundhog on Groundhog Day
• Super Bowl 2016 memories
• A story about those I love
• What love is to me
• I feel loved when
• The things I love most
• If I could meet any President – Who and Why
• If I became President
• The history of the Presidency
• If I could meet St. Patrick
• My thoughts on St. Patrick’s Life

These are just a few ideas to help make your kids’ wintertime writing fun! Feel free to come up with a few of your own before you turn over your winter writing prompt list to your kids.

Below you’ll find a link to a set of printable notebooking pages featuring these writing prompts. I hope your kids have a great time sharing their thoughts and hearts with you all winter long.

What are you favorite winter writing prompts?

Winter Writing Prompts Notebooking Pages

The post 25 Fun Winter Writing Prompts first appeared on True Aim.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Bic. The opinions and text are all mine.

I don’t know why I didn’t place an importance on handwriting when I was a child, but I wish someone would have inspired me. It would make filling out forms, writing letters, and even applying for jobs a lot easier. That’s why I’ve joined BIC’s Pledge to Save Handwriting by encouraging the act of handwriting in my home. Here are 3 ways I encourage my children to write!

3 Ways to Encourage Children to Write

Writing helps kids become better readers, boosts their confidence and sparks their creativity! It engages 14 different abilities, so why wouldn’t you want to encourage your kids to do it? Some experts recommend at least 15 minutes of handwriting instruction a day. Make it fun by trying some of these activities.

1. The Personal Notebook

Having a special notebook your child can write whatever they want to in definitely boosts their will to write.

Give it extra meaning by naming it their , “Things I Like Notebook” or “What I want to be Notebook”, Maybe even “Questions and Answers Journal”. Choose a name that really sparks an interest in your child and also turns it into a keepsake later on.

2. Make it Easy for Them

We have an ample supply of writing materials and art supplies to help our children draw and create whenever they feel inspired to. They also have places to display it too, but the easiest way that I’ve found to encourage my children to write is to compliment their work. It makes them want to do more!

3. Word Art

A fun activity my daughter likes to do weaves words and art together! Her first project was to trace her hand and then write about herself, tracing the outline with words instead of just lines.

This project she can work on for several days and add little things to it as she thinks about them. She’s really excited about what it looks like so far!

Next she tried a nature scene with a story woven into the drawing. I LOVE it and will be hanging it up in her room when she is finished.

How about you? Will you Join BIC’s mission to save handwriting? Show kids how awesome writing can be, how awesome they can be and enter to win a $1200 BIC prize pack. No Purch Nec., U.S. only, 18+. Ends 09/14/15. For details and full rules visit www.BICFightForYourWrite.com.

The post 3 Ways to Encourage Your Children to Write first appeared on True Aim.

Apps offer kids the hands-on handwriting practice and instruction only an iPad or tablet can bring. They aren’t just practicing, but are learning the correct formation of their letters and numbers. That’s why I’m so excited to introduce you to iTrace in this sponsored post. All opinions are 100% my own.

Best Handwriting App for Kids

iTrace is an Apple featured app with over 200,000 users and for good reason. My 3-year-old is in love with it. He asks to play it everyday! This is great for his fine motor skills and has really improved his pencil grip and control. It is teaching him handwriting without me!

I love that I can make all my children a separate account on the same app without having to pay an extra fee. They especially love practicing writing their name!

With each letter, the app shows my children how to write the letter and says the name of the letter. Then there are guidelines that help them as they trace the letter and the line will show in red if they make a mistake, like going too far out of the lines or picking up their finger too soon.

There are also common words that you can trace and you can even add your own words. I use that feature for spelling practice for my older children. For the common pre-loaded words, the app says each letter of the word and then the whole word with a picture example. My children aren’t just getting visual and hands-on practice, but they are hearing the letters as well!

Another awesome feature that I haven’t seen before is the ability to print off worksheets so children can practice on paper and pencil. This is so convenient to test your children and see what letters they need more practice with.

More Features of iTrace

I can’t express how amazing this handwriting app is! In my opinion, it is the best handwriting app for kids that I’ve seen. You need to try it for yourself. Download the free version today!

Here are more great features of iTrace, plus a video to see how easy it is to teach your children to write.

• Support for left-handed children
• Choose from 3 common methodologies of handwriting; Handwriting Without Tears (HWT), Zaner-Bloser and D’Nealian, including cursive letters
• View history of each child’s progress
• View Statistical data of each child to address difficulties
• iPhone and iPad support
• More than 600 prizes for completing exercises

iTrace — Handwriting for Kids from Michael Bogorad on Vimeo.

Handwriting App Giveaway!

iTrace is giving away their app to 5 lucky True Aim readers! To win, simply enter the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The post iTrace – The Best Handwriting App for Kids first appeared on True Aim.

I got a steal of a deal on a children’s art easel at a garage sale. $15 was what a mom was asking for it and I’m not one to barter. The only problem was the marker all over the wood and the chalk board.

I don’t really care about the dry erase board because if my kids had markers in their room you know I’d find marker in the most inconvenient places. Chalk is easy to clean, so I wanted to redo the board and make it even more fun. I had a bunch of magnets that weren’t getting used so I created this Magnetic Chalkboard to put on the easel and make it even better.

The first step was to clean up the marker that was all over the wood. All I used to clean it was some baking soda and water. If your marker isn’t coming off you can try toothpaste, or Orange Glo. The baking soda worked really well for everything except that there was a little permanent marker on the old chalk board and the chalk holder that I couldn’t get off. That was fine because I just covered both of those up.

For the chalk holder, I simply glued some scrapbook paper on and covered it with clear contact paper. It turned out really well and looks super cute in the kids’ room.

DIY Magnetic Chalk Board

If you’ve researched magnetic paint, and chalk paint, they can both be quite spendy. Then I would have to do multiple coats of both and who has time to do that? So I just bought a piece of sheet metal for close to $10 and made my own chalk paint to go on it. The kids joined in to help me paint.

Then I attached the metal sheet with heavy duty spray adhesive and held it in place with a small vice for a couple of hours to let it dry. If I did this again, I would paint the metal with primer first and then the chalk paint because I had to cover it with quite a few coats.

My children spend hours drawing and adding magnets to their scenes. It was well worth the effort, seeing all of their creative masterpieces. Have you made any chalk projects lately?

The post DIY Magnetic Chalkboard first appeared on True Aim.

This post contains an awesome giveaway below!  For more information, please read my full disclosure.

There are those words that every child struggles with when they start reading.  They’re the ones you can’t sound out and they show up all the time.  The most frequently used words in books are words that cannot be sounded out.  So when teaching my children to read, I use a combination of phonics and sight words.

That’s where this new Preprimer Sight Word Pack from 3 Dinosaurs comes in.  It introduces children to the most commonly used sight words like a, away, I, etc.  And it’s fun!  There are 40 different words covering the Dolch Preprimer Sight Word list.  For every word there are 10 different worksheet activities that your children will love!  I know mine did.

Audrey’s favorite worksheet was the word search.  I didn’t believe Cassie when she told me that older children like the word searches.  She was so right!  My daughter is 6 and she wanted to do more right after the first one.  We put our favorite printables in sheet protectors so we can reuse them and get in even more practice!

Here is a list of all the activities included in the pack:

• Sight Word Playdough Mat (or decorate the word)
• Do-a-dot the Sight Word
• Sight Word Trace – Color – Write
• Sight Word Color by Letter
• Find Sight Word in the Sentences
• Trace the Sight Word in the Sentences
• Sight Word Word Search
• Review Page
• Read – Trace – Write a Sentence
• Sight Word Maze

Plus there are 9 extras: Preprimer Sight Word Cards (3 types: Regular, Cube, & Word in the Frame), Small book with All Dolch Preprimer Words (Read, Trace & Color), Dolch Preprimer Sight Word list also with check off, Fun List Check with check that matches up to the set, Read – Write – Build Printable, Word Search Answer Key, and Sight Word Coloring Pages.

That is over 580 pages of activities and printables!

At only $15 this is an amazing value for only 2 cents per page!  To get these printables and start boosting your young readers skills, buy it today on Cassie’s Teachers Notebook or Teachers Pay Teachers stores.

Get the 3 Dinosuars Priprimer Pack for only $15!

A little bit about the Author: Cassie is a mom of three stomping, romping, and roaring girls.  She blogs about fun art and craft activities and printables she make.  Tip reviews, about the places that she has taken the girls, are also a fun feature.  She has lots of free printables for kids ages 2 to 8 and always adding more.  She loves to get comments and feedback and is always looking for new things to try with her girls.

3 Dinosaurs Giveaway!

Cassie is so generous.  She is giving away 1 Full Preprimer Pack and 1 Pack of the Extras to a couple lucky readers.  Please enter the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Free Printables

Cassie also has lots of free printables!  Here are some of the many learning packs she has on 3 Dinosaurs!

I was not compensated for this review, but given a free copy of the printable pack.  All opinions are my own.

Thanks for reading!

The post 3 Dinosaurs Preprimer Sight Word Pack Review and Giveaway! first appeared on True Aim.

“What would you like to write about today?”  That’s all I have to ask my daughter to get her excited about handwriting practice.  Usually I write down a sentence or short story for Audrey to copy in a notebook.  She rewrites the sentence and then draws a picture to go with it.  It’s her story so she is excited to make it come to life.  The style of her handwriting however is starting to resemble mine, which is not pretty.

Then I was introduced to StartWrite, the Handwriting Worksheet Wizard.  Not only has it sparked in Audrey an even greater passion to write and create stories of her own, but it is improving her handwriting style too.

Even if your children don’t like handwriting practice, this is the perfect solution.  You can customize the size, color, and formation guides of the letters to fit your children’s age and ability.  The features enable you to play off of their favorite things or use the holidays to create a themed educational activity.  Add images, borders, and blank spaces to capture their attention and make it fun!

Here are just a few of the features included in the software.  Click here for a full list.

• Letter Outline (Shown Below)
• Color letters
• Spanish Fonts
• Border Art
• Area Highlight
• Font Shading
• Cursive Fonts
• Math Fonts
• Free Clip Art

There are so many uses for custom handwriting worksheets, but here are a few I thought of:

• Teaching correct letter formation
• Printed lettering practice
• Cursive lettering practice
• Bible Memory Verse Worksheets
• Theme/Unit Study Worksheets
• Customized Lined Sheets
• Custom Writing Prompts
• Holiday and Birthday Letters

I love how easy it is to transfer my daughter’s creative ideas into these printables.  It is an amazing tool for anyone looking to give their children’s writing skills a boost!

Download the Free Trial Version!

Plus, the video tutorials will help you learn to use the program in minutes.  But if you’re not in a creative mood, there are hundreds of practice sheet templates available for purchase that you can customize.  And you don’t want to miss the 52 weeks of handwriting ideas on their blog that include themes, activities, and crafts to make handwriting an exciting multi-subject experience!

The thing I love most about StartWrite is the learning habits my children are developing.  The joy that they receive from writing is invaluable!

Like Startwrite on Facebook for Free Handwriting Worksheets Weekly!

StartWrite Worksheet Wizard Software Giveaway!

 Enter to win this amazing software valued at $49.95!

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Thanks for Reading!

The post Giveaway! Custom Handwriting Practice Worksheets from StartWrite first appeared on True Aim.

I use this activity to change up our regular spelling and writing practice.  Kids love making these “Rainbow Words”.  In fact, I find my children practicing on their own and making pictures around their words.

Rainbow Words Spelling Activity

Making rainbow words is easy.  We use crayons so the colors don’t bleed together and turn brown.  Colored pencils might work too, but crayons seem to be best because the lines are thicker so the rainbow really shows through.

First, I pick my children’s spelling words.  For my younger daughter, it is her name.  I write the words down for my children and they trace them with a crayon, spelling the word out loud as they write.  After they go over the word with one color, they repeat the process a few more times with different colors until they get a word rainbow.

 For my older daughter Audrey, I use words she is struggling to read and try to group them so they go together.  For example, sometimes she has trouble with the “ight” sound.  So I’ll pick the word “light” and try to find words that go poetically with it like “rays” “sight” “colors” and “bright”.  Other times, we’ll do a sentence so the practice is more meaningful and she can draw a picture with it.  You could even do Bible verses to help your children memorize scripture.

I love this activity because it not only helps my children develop their writing and spelling skills, it turns into beautiful artwork that I proudly display.  Audrey likes to give hers out to people she cares about.  There are lots of ways to practice writing and spelling, but if your children like art this might be the perfect activity for them!

For more spelling and writing activities for kids, follow me on Pinterest.  Thanks for your support!

The post Spelling and Writing Activity for Kids: Rainbow Words first appeared on True Aim.