Curriculum review of a unique and exciting approach to encourage your homeschooled children to write creatively!
I was given access to the WriteStories platform and compensated monetarily in order to write this comprehensive review for my homeschool audience.
As an English major turned homeschool mom, I am always looking for ways to encourage my children to think creatively, expand their vocabularies, and hone their writing skills.
Personally, I do not teach formal essay and research paper writing until high school because I want my children to enjoy the process of writing before complicating it with too many rules and annotations. But simply suggesting my children “write creatively” can be too open-ended. That’s why I was super excited to learn about WriteStories by Scriptive!
The WriteStories platform uses real children’s book illustrations to inspire my young writers to think creatively. It gives them a starting point rather than me putting them in front of a blank page and asking them to come up with something on their own. The illustrations are interesting and some are even quite familiar! In fact, several of my children started with the illustrations from Twas the Night Before Christmas.
When I signed up for my parent account, it was easy to individually add each of my younger children to the parent dashboard. I decided to use the program with my 7, 9, 11, and 13 year olds.
The two girls are young and still need a lot of help spelling and typing. Because of that, I enabled the Voice to Text setting, so they would not have to type everything they wanted to say. I left this setting off for the two older boys.
From there, I chose one book to get them started. (I let them choose subsequent books themselves.). As they were learning the platform, I wanted to give them stories they were familiar with. I chose Three Little Pigs for Mercy (age 7), and Twas the Night Before Christmas for the older 3.
To assign a book, simply click the Library icon on the navigation bar:
Then, scroll to the book you wish to assign and click on the “Assign Book” button.
A screen will pop up for you to fill in all the relevant information for the assignment and then it will show up in the child’s dashboard where they can click on it and start writing!
I wasn’t sure what to expect from my kids when I introduced them to WriteStories. I wondered if the children’s book illustrations would really inspire them to write their own stories. And I wondered if they would enjoy the process and want to do more.
Their response was beyond my wildest imaginings!
The 13 year old created an entirely rhyming story based on the book, How the Tortoise Got Its Shell. He wrote 1,374 words and it was hilariously funny and incredibly creative! I was bowled over!
The 11 year old blew through the first 3 books I assigned him and begged me for more!
The 9 year old thoughtfully worked through her books, trying to balance typing and voicing her stories. She gained so much confidence in her writing in the process!
The 7 year old voiced everything, but had to learn where to stop on one page and start on the next. She experimented with dialogue and humor. It was hilarious to listen to her chatter away as she “wrote” her book, often laughing to herself over the funny things she was adding to it!
I’d say it was a smashing success! In fact, we have been using the program for several weeks now, and my kids still ask EVERY school day if they can do “Scriptive” (as they call it)! I have put a bookmark at the top of my browser so they can easily get to the login screen and start writing!
This is such a neat concept, and I’m so glad I was able to use such wonderful children’s book illustrations to inspire my children!
Now, it’s your turn! Go to the WriteStories by Scriptive website to learn more about this phenomenal way to get your kids writing creatively!
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