We get asked a lot lately about how many of our products are now downloadable. Turns out that making 300 to 1600 page books into individual downloadable lessons and booklets takes a whole lot more time and effort than I envisioned! 😉

But we are doing it….little by little! This post will give you a little glimpse into what we have done so far and what our plans for the future are!

1. Write On, Mowgli; Write On, Peter Pan; Write On, Beauty and the Beast–our darling Book-Movie-Book month-long writing booklets are all available now (fifteen total!). We will be adding Write On, Christmas Friends this fall with some amazing holiday writing lessons that I have been testing over the past two years (with amazing samples of all of the projects!). Click HERE to view our books.

2. Really Writing was my original brainchild for converting Meaningful Composition writing assignments into downloadable monthly booklets for homeschoolers and brick and mortar schoolers. They are cool books–but the branding has kind of been all over the place….so look for these to change to Write-for-a-Month this winter (at our store and our Teachers Pay Teachers store). In the meantime, we have a few of them up as RW and dozens more to go up soon! Click HERE to view our books.

3. We have very gradually been getting other language arts downloads up. We have offered several of those as freebies on the blog and in our newsletter. These are cool booklets that REALLY work! We have our “How to Complete the Checklist Challenge,” “How to Write From a Source,” “How to Use Our Writing Boxes,” “Preposition Practice Packet,” “Think Fast Grammar Quiz and Answer Key,” “Write On Audio and Booklet Set for Teachers,” and much more! Click HERE to view our other Language Arts downloadable products.

Of course, we still have our print book lines, Character Quality Language Arts and Meaningful Composition!

Thanks for being a part of Character Ink!

Love and hope,
Donna

The post What Downloadable Products Does Character Ink Press Have? appeared first on Character Ink.

A Christmas Carol, Gift of the Magi, If You’re Missing Baby Jesus, The Christmas Tapestry, The Burglar’s Christmas, The Birth, The Luke Chronicles, Cosmic Christmas.….these are just a few of our favorite “young teens and up” stories that we read or listen to at Christmas. Just because our kids are all over twelve doesn’t mean we have to stop reading aloud at Christmas time. (As a matter of fact, we still read a favorite Christmas short story on our family decorating night and another one on our family Christmas Eve—with twelve adult kids!)

(Check out my Annotated Christmas Book List with our favorites, descriptions, and ratings!)

Below are a couple of links to books I use and love. I am an affiliate for Amazon.com. If you click on the links below I will earn a small commission. Thank you for your support of this blog!

If you’ve gotten out of the habit of reading aloud and aren’t sure how the family will respond to asking them to join for Christmas stories, here are some suggestions:

1) Choose a very short story (like one included in this post!). Don’t go for long and drawn out when adding a new tradition.

2) Add it to something you already do. For example, add it to Christmas Eve dinner or Christmas morning rolls or driving to Grandma’s.

3) Choose something fun at first. The two stories included in this post are fun ones to begin with–a traditional, well-known story AND a contemporary spin-off of it. I think your family will like them!

4) Go back to an old favorite! Don’t be afraid to pull out an old picture book (see annotated list above!) that you all loved around the Christmas tree in years gone by! Christmas is a time for family, togetherness, and memory making. Bringing out an old favorite picture book (Tale of Three Trees or Jingle the Christmas Clown) might be the perfect way to start reading Christmas stories again!

5) Keep it short. When we are adding something to our holiday get-togethers, we start out short until we see how everybody likes it. I have several collections of Christmas stories with short stories. One of these might be perfect for your Christmas dinner reading!

6) Do a picture book for the littles–and watch the biggies gather around!

7) Put lovely Christmas coffee table books out during the holiday season! This will draw people into your read aloud time.

8) Use audio stories while your crew wraps gifts, decorates the tree, or makes goodies. This is a good way to bring Christmas stories back into the “older kids/adult kids” home. Don’t bombard them–just say, “Hey, I found this audio site to listen to stories. Let’s listen to our old favorite, Gift of the Magi, while we drop buckeyes. (Or get sentimental on them and bring out some Adventures in Odyssey Christmas episodes like “Pokenberry Christmas”!

I hope this week finds you celebrating the Christ child, creating new memories with your family, and reading stories! 😉

Read a version of the classic “Scrooge” and one of the modern “Scrooge” here or by tapping on the image below.

P.S. What is your favorite “older kids'” Christmas story? Did your crew like today’s “modern Scrooge” story?

The post Traditional and Contemporary Scrooge Stories (2 Free Christmas Stories!) appeared first on Character Ink.

Which came first–the chicken or the egg? Or which comes first–the body or the opening paragraph? I have some strong opinions about this that I answer in today’s blog video/live class! 🙂 Additionally, this post contains a video lesson on creating opening and closing paragraphs for research reports. I teach my students (and I use this approach in my books) that there are over a dozen ways to create an opening paragraph. (See idea list below.) I also teach them that in upper level writing, they should be very specific in their opening and closing paragraphs. No more summarizing here and there (or restating everything you say in the paper!). I teach them HOW to write the various opening and closing types so that they can use them in their writing. Watch today’s video and follow along with a few pages of the text we used. (Jump Start II–coming out this month!)

Here are some of the opening/closing paragraph types that I teach and include in my publications.

(Many of them have templates that students use for outlining–sort of fill-in-the-blank outlines that are easy for students to fill in and write from!)

1) Statistics

2) Story

3) Dialogue

4) Quote

5) Verse

6) Newspaper report

7) Informative

8) Summary

9) Song

10) Rhyme/Poetry

Download the portion of the lesson containing this teaching and watch the video to learn more! (P.S. There’s a Prepositional Phrase Sentence Opener lesson near the of the video too!) And check out MC sample lessons (at the end of this blog post) for more opening and closing paragraph information!

P.S. If you are stuck teaching prepositions, or your students only know a token 30 (of the 230+), check out my Preposition Packet!

Click below to see free two-week samples of all of my Meaningful Composition books!

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With our Cottage Classes starting in all of our locations, we have been busy bees around here! Part of that has been creating teaching materials that our new teachers can use in the first few weeks of teaching (and that parents can use at home to reinforce what they are learning in our classes). So this post is going to introduce you to one of our new downloadable lessons (with a video lesson!) that you can use at home to teach Sentence-by-Sentence Outlining Over Given Material. Just watch the video with your student and have fun learning to write from an interesting given passage. Completely directed. Totally fun. Easy peasy.

About Tools & Tricks:

“This Tools and Tricks, Level V book teaches students how to create a Sentence-by-Sentence (S-by-S) Outline Over Given Material and how to write from that outline. It teaches Language Lady’s approach to limiting word per sentence, having provided outlining spaces with teaching notes, focusing on each paragraph’s topic, writing with unusual punctuation, determining your method early on, utilizing various sentence structures, and more. This lesson is from the “Really Writing” series of single-lesson-downloadable products and uses material about the miner who unearthed the Regent Diamond for students to outline and write three paragraphs. All outlining spaces, instructions, details, and directed writing instructions are included. You may purchase the video lesson that correlates with this at the Character Ink store or Teachers Pay Teachers—or you may have access to it and dozens of other downloadable products at the Character Ink Members’ Area at the blog and/or store.”

Here’s to a great school year for you and your kiddos!

Love and hope,

P.S. What method, book, chapter, approach, or lesson would you like to see on video? Comment below or shoot me an email, and I’ll get right on that! 🙂

The post New Downloadable Really Writing Product–Tools and Tricks (The Miner and the Regent Diamond) appeared first on Character Ink.

Teaching writing is not for the faint of heart! It is the most subjective “subject” in school—and, consequently, can be one of the most challenging to teach. Oftentimes, materials designed to teach writing are more writing idea than writing instruction. They leave the student (and the teacher!) wondering exactly what to do to complete the writing prompt. This is one reason that after I write a book (one hundred in all!), test, test, and retest the book with real (or virtual starting this fall!) students to be sure that all of the steps are included and clear. Last week I shared a lesson from one of my books that I did with a mixed live/virtual class about writing from a given source. This week I’d love to give you another peek into my online writing classes for the fall with another cooperative “guinea pig” group!

This week’s lesson had the students branching out from a given source to finding their own source—in a three paragraph beginning-persuasive biographical essay. That is a mouthful…so watch for yourself….with the downloadable lesson provided! Happy writing!

Click here to download weeks 10 and 11 of the Jump Start book!

What kind of writing lesson would you like to see in action? How can I help you teach writing or spelling or grammar or reading in your home or classroom?

Love and hope,

Donna

The post Original Biographical Essay Live Lesson (Video and Download Included!) appeared first on Character Ink.

It’s finally happening! I am finished with the Write On, Beauty and Beast books (five books; five levels; downloadable AND print books)—and they are going up at my stores!

Yay! That makes five Write On, Mowgli! books; five Write On, Beauty and Beast! books (by the end of next week); and two Write On, Peter Pan! books (with the other three coming the first of April). Check out the description of the Write On! books here.

The first one available is the Junior High book, and I love it! I have been testing the assignments with our one hundred cottage class students over the past two semesters, and it has been a blast!

This Level III book is designed for junior high students and contains the following projects (from pre-writing through final product with all the instruction and skills needed for each assignment): Expanded Writing Boxes With Beauty and Beast Story and Original Essay of Three Castle Objects You Would Choose as Friends.

Can someone say FUN and CUTE!?

So you might be wondering what makes these books (or any of my writing books) different from other writing books…I’m glad you asked!

There are a few secrets to my books’ success in getting kids to write (and like it!):

1) Interesting topics—Um, yeah, our Book-Movie-Book line up of books contains super interesting topics

2) Directed Writing Approach—never a writing idea book; never starters; never vague instructions about what a student should do…but hand-holding, step-by-step instructions that take a student from idea to final product with all of the steps in between

3) Skill Building along the way—I don’t ask students to write a type of paper that contains certain things without also teaching the skills that are needed to complete that project. (Have you ever had an assignment in which a student was supposed to include a quotation but the assignment didn’t actually teach the student how to write with quotations? So sorry!)

Each project in all of my books has detailed samples for students to see how the project was written by another student and in depth lessons of all of the skills needed in order to complete that project.

In the case of Write On, Beauty and Beast III, the following skills/lessons are taught in the two writing projects (Writing Boxes and Three Castle Friends Essay):

1. Sentence by Sentence Writing Boxes for Beauty and Beast, including adding describers to each sentence and ending with multiple paragraph writing (and extensive Answer Keys)

2. Brainstorming Boxes and organizing material for castle friends

3. Research objects in a castle

4. Quotation inclusion

5. Notetaking from source

6. Transition lessons

7. Paragraph Writing From Notes

8. Thesis Statement

9. Thesis Statement Reloaded; and more!

Each write on book (five Mowgli, two Peter Pan, and two Beauty and Beast) has sample pages. Check them out! See if my new downloadable AND print short books might work for you!

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One of the best ways to get to a kid’s writing heart is to give him two things: (1) Writing projects with clear, “Directed” instructions every step of the way and (2) Fun writing topics!

Thankfully, my new Write On books offers both of these!

For those new to this series (this is the seventh book out of fifteen that will be available within the next six weeks!), here is a description of them:

“The Write On! series of books is from Character Ink Press’ Book-Movie-Book line of publications that are starting to come out in spring 2016. The Write On! books are writing/composition books of two to four lengthy lessons each, between 60 and 120 pages per book (depending on the level).

These books contain writing projects based on old books/current movies that children and adults love. The program contains all types of writing, especially focusing on research reports, essays, and stories.

Buy Write On, Peter Pan Level I here!

 
The projects in the series all use the author’s signature “Directed Writing Approach,” which takes students by the hand every step of the way from prewriting (brainstorming, character and plot development, research, etc.) to skill building (for projects requiring certain skills, such as quotes or imagery or persuasion, etc.) to outlining (based on the type of writing) to writing rough drafts to editing (via the Checklist Challenge) to final copy. No vagueness. No questions as to what to write or how to write.”

 
These books are about three popular movies that have been re-made in the past year or so—movies that were originally popular, classic books for families. The movies (and the books) are fun, creative, imaginative, interesting, and engaging. I am trying to bring out writing books for kids that are creative, imaginative, interesting, and engaging as well!

So far, we have these three book/movie combo writing books written (five books/five levels for each movie):

Write On, Mowgli (April 2016)
Write On, Peter Pan! (February 2017)
Write On, Beauty and the Beast (March 2017)
These books in this Write On! series are available as downloadable e-books (at Character Ink Press and Teachers Pay Teachers) and as print books through Character Ink Press and Amazon.

Current and upcoming titles (five books in each title) include the following:

Level I: Early Elementary
Level II: Upper Elementary
Level III: Junior High
Level IV: High School
Level V: Advanced High School

Projects in Write On, Peter Pan Level I (Early Elementary)

This Level I book is designed for early elementary students and contains the following projects (from pre-writing through final product with all the instruction and skills needed for each assignment):

 
Project 1: Expanded Writing Boxes With Peter Pan Story
Project 2: Who Am I—Original Riddle Essay About Peter Pan Characters
Projects 3 & 4: Question and Outline for a Ship Report (Ships During the Time of Captain Hook).

 
Each project has detailed samples for students to see how the project was written by another student and in depth lessons of all of the skills needed in order to complete that project—Sentence by Sentence Writing Boxes for Peter Pan Story, including adding describers to each sentence and ending with paragraph writing (and extensive Answer Keys); Brainstorming Boxes and organizing material for riddles; Research characters from story; First Person Writing instruction; Notetaking From Paragraph Source; Answering Questions From Paragraph Source; Paragraph Writing From Notes; CAVES for Sentence Writing (Capital, All Makes Sense, Verb, End Mark, Subject); Synonym Brainstorming; Final Product.)

Check out our five Write On, Mowgli books (early elementary through upper high school) by clicking on the image below (print and downloadable):

Check out our other Peter Pan book, Write On, Peter Pan III (Junior High) by clicking on the image below (print and downloadable).

Watch for Write On, Beauty and the Beast in March at our store (five levels)

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Yep…this is the first of our Write On, Peter Pan books! In case you are not familiar with the first five Write On books in this growing series (Write On, Mowgli!), here is the scoop on the entire Write On series:

“The Write On! series of books is from Character Ink Press’ Book-Movie-Book line of publications that are starting to come out in spring 2016. The Write On! books are writing/composition books of two to four lengthy lessons each, between 80 and 120 pages per book (depending on the level). These books contain writing projects based on old books/current movies that children and adults love. The program contains all types of writing, especially focusing on research reports, essays, and stories.

The projects in the series all use the author’s signature “Directed Writing Approach,” which takes students by the hand every step of the way from prewriting (brainstorming, character and plot development, research, etc.) to skill building (for projects requiring certain skills, such as quotes or imagery or persuasion, etc.) to outlining (based on the type of writing) to writing rough drafts to editing (via the Checklist Challenge) to final copy. No vagueness. No questions as to what to write or how to write.”

Each series (Peter Pan, Mowgli, and Dumbo) contains five books:

Level I: Early Elementary
Level II: Upper Elementary
Level III: Junior High
Level IV: High School
Level V: Advanced High School

These books in this Write On! series are available as downloadable e-books (at Character Ink Press and Teachers Pay Teachers) and as print books through Character Ink Press and Amazon. Current and upcoming titles (five books in each title) include the following:

Write On, Mowgli (April 2016)
Write On, Peter Pan! (January 2017)
Write On, Belle and Beast (February 2017)

Write On, Peter Pan Level III

Now on to this cute book (the first of five coming out over the next few weeks). This is the Junior High book (Level III)…no rhyme or reason there. It is just ready first! All five will be here over the next few weeks!

This Level III book is designed for junior high students and contains the following projects (from pre-writing through final product with all the instruction and skills needed for each assignment): Essay Writing—Three Favorite Characters Essay and Dialogue Story: Dialogue Between Two Toys in the Darling’s Nursery.

Each project has detailed samples for students to see how the project was written by another student and in depth lessons of all of the skills needed in order to complete that project:

~ 1-3-1 Essay Approach lesson

~ Quotation Inclusion in Essay Writing (with punctuation lessons)

~Thesis Statement instruction

~Directed Brainstorming Boxes

~Sentence-by-Sentence Outlining, including links/transitions

~Writing With a Series of Three or More

~Extensive Checklist Challenges

~Dialogue Writing

~ Said/Asked/Exclaimed lesson

~Colon use in dialogue

~And more!

And more good news—there are over a dozen pages of this book available to print and check out/use or view to see if the level looks right for your student! AND….all of the Write On books are available as a single family download or a group/co-op/class download, so check out the two prices for those. And for those of us who are old school, Amazing and Character Ink have the print versions spiral bound with colorful covers as shown in the pictures! Something for everyone!

View Samples & Check It Out!

Thanks for checking them out!

Love and hope,

Donna

The post [Product Highlight] Write On, Peter Pan! appeared first on Character Ink.

Now that I am done homeschooling, I have been expanding my home business offerings. My husband and I are still writing and teaching parenting through Character Ink/Raising Kids With Character. I continue to write curriculum (including new downloadable products and finishing my Meaningful Composition series). I still teach Cottage Classes to homeschoolers one day a week. I added private students last year—and I love it! So much like my homeschooling days with my kids. This year I also added my Plexus supplement business.

But, when you’ve homeschooled for thirty-two years and filled nearly every minute of every week day with work you love (teaching my kids and being with them!), you just need even more work when you are in your mid-fifties! 🙂 So I have started a healthy living blog to share my sugar-free baking, healthy mixes, time management, and work-at-home secrets.

I would love to teach you there in addition to Character Ink! And to get you started, I have written a one-hundred page e-book that teaches readers how to cut sugar out of their family’s life—what to substitute when, where to purchase substitutions, how to use them, and more. It includes incremental recipes to get you started while you purchase few ingredients in the beginning (something crucial for new sugar-free/healthier cooks).

You can get the free e-book here! Check out the blog while you are there—I already have some great info up to help you.

Question: What are your greatest frustrations in trying to cook and bake more healthfully for your family? How can I help you?

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We all want to. But sometimes our “want to’s” do not become our actual “do’s.”

Keeping close to our children is something that we must plan for and put on our calendars just like appointments.

We worked hard at this by having Terrific Tuesdays, Half Birthday Celebrations, when you sit in your house, Calendar Meetings, and much more.

I’m down to the last ten weeks of “Talking to our Kids,” so you have a lot of ideas to choose from.

I want to throw out there our Keep Kids Close Coupons….they are inexpensive (and often given as a freebie to subscribers of the blog!), but they are handy….and really helped us keep our kids close!

Here are some neat ways to use these cards (or cards you make up yourself) to keep close:

(1) There are a lot of coupons for special things floating around, but we like these because their name tells the why behind them. We are going to do this or that because we want to keep close.

(2) Don’t pass them out constantly—and possibly not even once a week. (Other coupons, like affirmation ones, are good for weekly or lunch box types of coupons.)

(3) These should be used to communicate to the child that you want to do something special together so that you can be close to each other.

(4) Try to do low to no cost things so that it doesn’t become a thing where your child always has to DO something in order to be with you. (See ideas below.)

(5) Alternate with just Mom; just Dad; and Mom and Dad together with the child.

(6) The activities together do not have to be long. (Again, see ideas below.) They can be as short as an hour long card game or a walk in the neighborhood.

(7) While you don’t want these to get expensive, if you have pre-teens and teens, do plan to incorporate some food-related outings! It can be simple like an ice cream cone from McDonalds, but our experience has been that tweens and teens love to eat!

(8) Be sure that your times together are not always so activity-driven that you can’t talk and just be together. For example, while going to the movies might be fun, it would be better to go to the park and take a picnic snack and walk around the lake so that you can really connect.

(9) Take notes about what your child likes, what outings or times together meant a lot to him before, etc. Our oldest son thrived on my husband meeting him in the driveway to shoot baskets at ten every night after Ray had put the littles to bed. Some things are more special to some kids than other things are.

(10) If you are giving these to teens, you might not want to put a date on the coupon. While it is easier to schedule with an elementary child (Saturday morning breakfast sandwich at the park), teens’ schedules are often challenging to work around. You want to give him the what then determine a time together that works. (These should not feel like obligations to the teens—like time that you are taking away from other things.)

Download Yours Today!

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