Joyce Herzog is an accomplished author and speaker of many resources for homeschoolers. I've seen her speak a number of times at homeschool conventions on a variety of topics. She is a real gem to say the least. We were given copies of the Budding Authors series to review for The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew. Now let me start out by saying that I am so use to using Turn Key Operation homeschooling materials, this left me a bit out there. I like to see Day 1 we do this, Day 2 we do that. We are not in Kansas anymore Toto...lol. But this material was very easy to follow despite my worries and fears...lol. We used this material with our 12 year old 7th grader.
The first book is Step Into Writing Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series and is $10.00. The second book Step On Into Writing Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series is also $10.00. Both stressed the importance of using your best penmanship, punctuation and work spacing. Your students daily work should take around 10 minutes at most. This book is suppose to contain dictionary pages, which I did not find in the book. I really liked the idea of C,P,S, paper. Each page has a section off to the side marked with those letters. Once the child is done writing, they know to check for C=Capitalization, P=Punctuation and S=Spelling. Even though we did not use this book (it was too easy for our 7th grader) I plan to implement the use of the C,P,S, system since it's easy for our son to forget to go back and look over his work.
I really liked the quote in the book "Do not expect your learner to correct and concentrate on all skills at once!" Oh, as homeschool mommas we all need to hear that sometimes, don't we? Many times we expect way too much from our kiddo's in the area of picking up on concepts and them putting them to use.
These first two books are set up with copy work, dictation (love that, helps kids to learn to listen), experience story in which the parent and child discuss the picture that is on the writing page. The child tells you the story and you write it out in their own words in the first book, the second book you do the same thing except the child writes out the story.
We started out with book number three Adventures In Writing Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series which is $10.00. This book concentrates on "Writing short stories in a single paragraph." Again each page has a picture to look at to get an idea and then there are word boxes to help the student write the story. Later on there are blank word boxes for the child to get key word ideas down first before writing the story.
We also got book number four Then and Now Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series which is $12.00. Your student will learn to "Write comparisons in two paragraphs." This book has a note to the reader with a touching story of how the book came into being. This book teaches what a good paragraph is, ordering of ideas, using 3x5 index cards to get ideas down and in order. Your student will learn thinking, organizing and writing skills through the use of this book.
We did not get to the Writing U.S. History Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series yet, but plan to work through it this summer. This book is $15.00 and gives a quick overview of how to take notes on 3x5 index cards and work on researching topics and writing them. There is a letter to the student (I think that this helps the student to feel important and take ownership of the material) giving details of how this book is laid out and what is expected of the student. After glancing through this book I can now see where our former curriculum went wrong! It was not detailed enough and expected way too much from the student too soon.
We are very pleased to be able to use these materials from Joyce Herzog and I totally recommend these to any homeschooler, but especially to those that have struggling writers, they can become budding authors through using Joyce Herzog's materials.
The first book is Step Into Writing Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series and is $10.00. The second book Step On Into Writing Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series is also $10.00. Both stressed the importance of using your best penmanship, punctuation and work spacing. Your students daily work should take around 10 minutes at most. This book is suppose to contain dictionary pages, which I did not find in the book. I really liked the idea of C,P,S, paper. Each page has a section off to the side marked with those letters. Once the child is done writing, they know to check for C=Capitalization, P=Punctuation and S=Spelling. Even though we did not use this book (it was too easy for our 7th grader) I plan to implement the use of the C,P,S, system since it's easy for our son to forget to go back and look over his work.
I really liked the quote in the book "Do not expect your learner to correct and concentrate on all skills at once!" Oh, as homeschool mommas we all need to hear that sometimes, don't we? Many times we expect way too much from our kiddo's in the area of picking up on concepts and them putting them to use.
These first two books are set up with copy work, dictation (love that, helps kids to learn to listen), experience story in which the parent and child discuss the picture that is on the writing page. The child tells you the story and you write it out in their own words in the first book, the second book you do the same thing except the child writes out the story.
We started out with book number three Adventures In Writing Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series which is $10.00. This book concentrates on "Writing short stories in a single paragraph." Again each page has a picture to look at to get an idea and then there are word boxes to help the student write the story. Later on there are blank word boxes for the child to get key word ideas down first before writing the story.
We also got book number four Then and Now Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series which is $12.00. Your student will learn to "Write comparisons in two paragraphs." This book has a note to the reader with a touching story of how the book came into being. This book teaches what a good paragraph is, ordering of ideas, using 3x5 index cards to get ideas down and in order. Your student will learn thinking, organizing and writing skills through the use of this book.
We did not get to the Writing U.S. History Budding Authors in the Budding Authors series yet, but plan to work through it this summer. This book is $15.00 and gives a quick overview of how to take notes on 3x5 index cards and work on researching topics and writing them. There is a letter to the student (I think that this helps the student to feel important and take ownership of the material) giving details of how this book is laid out and what is expected of the student. After glancing through this book I can now see where our former curriculum went wrong! It was not detailed enough and expected way too much from the student too soon.
We are very pleased to be able to use these materials from Joyce Herzog and I totally recommend these to any homeschooler, but especially to those that have struggling writers, they can become budding authors through using Joyce Herzog's materials.
We were also given a copy of 6 Weeks to Understanding Grammar to review. WOW!!! What a little book this is! It's like a Cliff Notes book for grammar. We loved this! The only thing that I found a problem with was that on page 12 there is a partial sentence and the rest of the paragraph is missing. I think that this little book would be a great study companion for the SAT/ACT testing. It's definitely worth the $12 for your student!
The Joyce Herzog website has a lot of great links and explanations about her books on it. If you even have the chance to hear Joyce Herzog speak do it. I've come away with so much from her talks.
We did not find anything in this review that we did not like. We had fun and our son learned how to write and form well read paragraphs. Thanks TOS Review Crew for another fun learning experience.
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