One of the most frequent questions I see homeschool parents asking in our official Essentials in Writing and Essentials in Literature Facebook groups (check them out, if you haven’t already—they’re great for additional resources, help with questions, and camaraderie with others who use the curriculum!) is the following: “How do I know which level is…
Essential Conversations
This blog is devoted to all aspects of writing, literature, and teaching. We are excited to partner with you on your homeschool journey and provide you with helpful and quality content in our blog posts.
The Essentials in Writing Scoring Service: What You and Your Homeschool Student Need to Know (Pt 1)
On August 1, the 2019-2020 Scoring Service begins! In this service, we assist homeschool families in grading the writing of their middle school and high school students. The Scoring Service has grown from one scorer to five in the last four years, and our customer base has tripled! As we have expanded and adapted, we’ve…
Homeschooling Tips: The Joys of Writing in a Journal
In my June blog post about the summer scaries, I talked briefly about different types of writing “assignments” that you could give your homeschool student over the summer. In this post, I want to focus on one type of summer (or year-round) writing for your student: journaling. Journals—the hip, gender-neutral cousin of the diary—have risen…
Personal Homeschool Story: How I Taught Expression Through Creative Writing to My Young Brother
Story time! Growing up, I was homeschooled from 2nd grade through 12th grade. When I was twelve years old, my mother had her third child and only son, Elijah. I had always wanted a little brother, so from the very beginning, I had a special love for the little guy. Being so much older than…
Tips on How to Built Better Vocabulary
One regret I have about my time in kindergarten through high school is that I didn’t learn more vocabulary words, so I didn’t know how to integrate them into my writing. While I enjoyed spelling, I rarely took the time to learn what a word meant and how to use it. Now that I’ve graduated college and have…
Why Writing is Important in Life after Homeschool
“But When Will I Use This in Real Life?”: Why Writing Matters After Homeschool Summertime (when the living is easy) is an excellent span in which to reflect on the past year of schooling and the coming year as well. What subjects were successfully learned? Which topics caused troubles and struggles? If your homeschool…