How to Rock Creative Writing When Homeschooling (and when you don’t feel like THAT creative mom)

Have you ever fumbled your way through teaching a homeschool subject to later realize that you gave your children an amazing start?

It’s not a teaching method I tout because blunders don’t always turn out so productive.

However, teaching is partly influenced by what we were taught growing up and creative writing was a painful process for me.

In middle school, I wasn’t given a specific and detailed explanation of what is creative writing.

Being told to write creatively to a child that thrives with details, planning and wants specificity from a teacher who is naturally creative can be a lethal combination.

My middle school teacher thought I couldn’t relax and let thoughts flow or so it seemed. And I thought my teacher didn’t know how to teach because she was unclear in her assignment and didn’t mind the details or so I thought.

Until I started homeschooling my own children, I didn’t really grasp what my teacher was excited about.

Hoping to bridge the difference between exceptional homeschool teachers who are naturally creative and those who can be when they clearly understand the assignment, look at three things I learned the hard way.

Freedom from the Homeschool Curriculum Box

That is powerful if you think about it.

It is about emotions, thoughts and self-expression. It’s about you and who doesn’t like talking (or writing) about their self.

In explaining creative writing to my boys, I used the example of a group photo taken by one of their friends.

When my boys’ friends show them the photo, can you guess what my boys look at first? Yep. They look for themselves first in the picture.

We can’t help it, it’s natural. We want to see how we look.

Creative writing is like finding yourself in that photo. Naturally creative teachers know that putting thoughts on paper is the outside of what is brimming on the inside of an individual.

Once explained to a child, he can bring comical thoughts, deep emotions and even fears to the surface for writing topics. Digging up those thoughts in a child’s mind may require effort on the part of a teacher.

Though I didn’t fully understand all the benefits of reading aloud when I started homeschooling, I reaped the benefits of doing it each day.

When I turned my boys loose, my sons could write pages and pages of stories based on their wild imagination that was stimulated by excellent literature.

After they would would write pages and pages, I failed again. I switched to teacher mode. Correcting grammar and errors is what I thought writing was all about.

That wasn’t working because I almost created a resistant writer with my first son because I had stifled his creativity.

Thinking that my oldest son had to make a point to the endless stories he was penning was the second mistake I made.

Being a product of my schooling, I had been taught to be clear, concise and brief in my speech and writing.

Those qualities are important as I learned, but not to the extent that they diminish my son’s love for words and expressing emotions through artfully contrived words.

Being part of the solution is to let your child write without fear of being overly corrected, mechanical or trying to make their writing fit your boxed curriculum.

From my childhood and experience teaching my first child who was similar to my learning style, I knew that if told him that creative writing was like painting with no rules, he would add his flair to his writing. And he did.

Also, I learned to not bring my teacher mode to the table and start correcting his paper or in other words smother an ember before it becomes a flame.

And I always added in a good dose of reading aloud each day to help all my boys find their style for writing.

Adding creative writing to your curriculum can be challenging but having confident writers years later has been worth every effort.

But I learned a few more things too.  I learned to use my teaching strengths as a spring board to creative writing ideas.  And, I learned how to help my kids create and brainstorm for writing topics.

Later I realized that I don’t have to give up details, planning or specificity when writing. I will share specific details in an upcoming post about how I used my strengths to make creative writing flourish.

What about you? Are you afraid to step out of the box and teach creative writing?

You’ll love these tips!

• 3 Ways to Choose the BEST Writing Curriculum (for a Growing Homeschool Family)
• Cursive Matters; Handwriting Style Doesn’t + Free Resources
• Why It Is Hard to Teach Homeschooled Kids Writing But Not Impossible

You can do it!

Hugs and love ya,