Big Idea Number Two

As I promised Monday—Big Idea Number Two!

When my children were first learning to write, we decided we needed to share the wonders of their imaginations with all of our family and friends, so we published the “Dippel Kidbits.” The beauty of this particular activity was the diversity it produced. We typed up, illustrated and copied a few months of writing assignments for each issue. The best part was it provided us with an audience—one that often responded with cards, letters, even newsletters of their own.

Here are some of the departments our newsletter covered……….

• Current Dippel events
• Comics—yes this counts as writing
• Movie reviews
• Jokes
• Book reviews
• Poems
• Short stories
• Bible verses
• Art work
• Sports reports—baseball wins/losses, tennis tournament results, highlights
The kids were so much more motivated to write when they knew there was a reason for it, and producing a newsletter was an exciting reason. As you can see, it also gave them a wide variety of choices and opportunities to develop different kinds of writing. I still have every issue of “Dippel Kidbits,” so an added bonus is the adorable record of your children’s early years it produces.
As you can probably guess, the coolness of it wore off after the elementary years. But my kids learned the building blocks of good writing in a way that felt like fun. To me, that qualifies our little newsletter for the homeschool hall of fame.

Let us know if you decide to publish a newsletter. We’d love to see it!