Are you looking to use WriteShop this year? For the first time? It can be overwhelming when you first get a new curriculum. I thought I would walk through using WriteShop together so you get the most out of your WriteShop curriculum this year.
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Using WriteShop for the First Time
I am, traditionally, a paper book kinda girl. But due to shipping to Canada, there was no way I could get WriteShop products, two different physical book levels shipped to us. If you live in Canada, you know that the cost of shipping can be crazy.
Using a digital curriculum like this does take a little while to get used to. I spent day one scrolling and scrolling and scrolling some more trying to figure things out. My head was spinning. Are you there with me?
First Steps of Using Digital Curriculum
Read through the teachers’ manual. It has numerous tips for making this curriculum work for you.
I like to open up both files – the teacher manual and the workbook at the same time. This lets me go back and forth between the files finding what I need easily as I prep.
Throughout each lesson, certain activities will be preceded by a text box containing Advance Prep instructions. These boxes let you know you must make a few simple preparations before your child can do the activity.
Examples of Advance Prep include:
• Printing pages
• Cutting apart game cards
• Gathering a few simple supplies
• Doing some optional laminating
Overwhelmed? I was. Don’t give up. The next part is going to be your “Oh! I get it now!” moment.
What Next? Each WriteShop Day
I was still a bit confused until I was scrolling Facebook one day and passed a post someone shared stating, like me there we lost and confused.
Then some lovely person pointed out the answer to them, and me. At the top of each page, you will find the name of the book you are using and then a couple of numbers. Those numbers coordinate to the lesson and the day you are one in the standard schedule. The page above is from WriteShop1 Lesson 1, Day 7.
In WriteShop Junior in the corner, it is going to say something like Activity Set 1:2, it still means the same thing: Lesson 1, Day 2.
Lightbulb moment right? After reading that one comment I finally got how to use WriteShop and I wanted to make sure everyone knew! Maybe you already did, I don’t know, I didn’t and I consider myself reasonably intelligent.
More WriteShop Tips
Laminate the pages you are going to be using again and again. Laminated each of the schedules, we’ll be referring to them each day. On the opposite side of the WriteShop1, I have the Common Proofreading Terms and Symbols, which again is something we are going to be using often.
Create the writing or work area. I think this is just like creating a homeschool area but it of course is going to include the things that you need for WriteShop. This year we are keeping everything in a stand we added wheels too. It has three drawers which could be one per child, but in our case, it is not. One has all the paper we’ll need, one has tools – hole punch, pencils, etc. The last is for our work.
I’ll add more to this post as we go along our journey.
More Curriculum
Grammar Galaxy – Secular Language Arts Curriculum