Thanksgiving Writing Freebie!

Exciting news! We've just released a Thanksgiving themed freebie writing resource. This activity focuses on sentence-start practice with nouns and adverbs. Click the image above to access your FREE download :)

SCW Store Update

Hey everyone! We've got some exciiiiiiiting news to share...Our newest writing mega unit is finished and available through our store! We are so pumped about this one!! Argument writing and the argumentative essay are essential common core elements required throughout middle school and high school but like most in depth essay styles, it can be a bit daunting to know where to start on this one. Our goal in creating this comprehensive resource was to take the sequencing and handout/practice activity prep work largely off your plate. The resource is broken down into 12 information packed lessons, most of which could be expanded into two lessons if preferred. Each lesson includes teachers notes, instructional handouts and printable practice activities. Click the image below to for more details and a preview! 

Just in time for the Halloween and Thanksgiving season, we've also released our Pumpkin Fun: Varied Sentence Starts activity packet. This resource features 5 printable activities to help your students practice 5 different ways to vary their sentence starts. This skill set is fantastic for all writing forms and styles, not just essays. Click the image below for more details and a preview!

Finally, we've got two new literary essay practice resources available! One offers students the opportunity to practice their literary essay writing skills after reading the classic novel, 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. The other offers a similar practice opportunity but for a more spooky literature classic: The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. Perfect for Halloween themed writing practice! Click images below for more information and previews. 

25 Freebies in One Resource!

We are so excited to be a part of this amazing TPT freebie compiled by Literary Sherri! Here's the premise:

- 25 TPT Sellers

- 25 'Meet' pages: learn a little more about the people behind these fabulous secondary stores! Find our profile on p. 14. 

- 25 'Teach' pages: peruse 25 freebie downloadable resources by those sellers that you can use in your classroom immediately! Find our freebie resource on p. 15.

As always thanks for following along and for your continued support. We hope our blank daily outline template in this resource is of great use to you and your students!

If you'd like to access our portion of the eBook directly, click here to download the freebie from our store. Included in this document is a linky page which connects to the eBook download link as well as links to all 25 sellers and their stores.

Hoping your week is off to a great start!

SCW Store Update

We're super excited to announce our paragraph instruction and practice resources are now complete and available for purchase in our store!! We've been planning these babies for some time now, so it's thrilling to have them finished in time for the start of this school year. 

Proper paragraph writing is vital. If taught simplistically and consistently, students grasp the concept rather quickly and forever benefit from this versatile skill. With these two resources we aim to provide teachers with the visual aids and engaging practice templates to help their students confidently and correctly write paragraphs. We hope you enjoy! 

INSTRUCTION & PRACTICE RESOURCE

CUSTOMIZABLE & REUSABLE PRACTICE RESOURCE

SCW Store Update

Hey all! I hope your August is going well and that preparations for the new school year are well underway. I'm popping in today with an exciting update about what's new over at our Start Communications Writing (SCW) store!

August is BIG for teachers so you can trust we're busy bees at work, perfecting more new products than ever before with the kind of systems, simplicity and style you've come to expect from us. We have sooo many ideas, so more teacher-time-saving products are always around the corner. Yay! It's just finding enough hours in each day to create them that's our challenge ;) A good challenge to have, if you ask us! 

NEW IN THE SHOP!

This Home Schooling beginning-of-the-year vision planner is a fantastic resource and the first of many home schooling products to come. Map out your family's learning priorities, education vision, curriculum preferences, support structure and more with this interactive booklet, written from Avaline's extensive home school consulting experience.

In case you're new to our story, Avaline is a home schooling teacher and consultant of 21 years and I was fortunate enough to be home schooled by her for several elementary years. Needless to say, in addition to education in general, we are passionate about home schooling done well. We look forward to sharing our tips, tools and resources specifically geared towards home schooling in greater volume in the near future!

This resource is a particular favourite of ours because it facilitates daily practice of an essential essay writing skill, the outline. Included in this pack is a note to teachers, a blank weekly topic sentence template (Monday - Friday) and 5 blank outline templates (Monday - Friday). The purpose of this resource is to encourage students towards strong outline writing by practicing it 5 minutes a day. This resource makes it simple and efficient for teachers to engage student's in this important activity. Photocopy these templates as many times as you'd like for use in your classroom! 

Start the year off right with these graphic dividers for your students' writing portfolios. Many of our resources already file beautifully into this portfolio system and we are in the process of creating the remaining resources which will complete the system. Of course, these dividers are meant to work for your collecting writing resources as well, so be sure to customize the system in whatever way works best for you and for your classroom!

There's a lot more coming soon, so stay tuned! Happy Thursday everyone :)