Focus on Easter with These 7 Spiritual Prompts

SHARON’S BLOG
Are you looking for a way to focus your students’ minds and hearts on the meaning of Easter?

Our special Easter prompts will help your students think deeply on the events and meaning of our dear Savior’s death and resurrection.

These 7 prompts are arranged chronologically from Jesus’ Triumphal Entry through Thomas’s epiphany a week after the resurrection.

Included are prompts with poetry, story writing, definitions, opinions, and more.

Suitable for students in grades 7 – 12. Students in grades 5 and 6 are welcome as well.

Writing Prompts to Celebrate Dr. Seuss

You are familiar with Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel or “Ted”) through his popular stories such as Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hears a Who, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and The Cat in the Hat. But did you know that he used to write very different kinds of literature? Read on to find out!

Below you’ll find 5 writing prompts to celebrate Dr. Seuss’s accomplishments.

Composition: Let’s Make it Easier

You’ve just read the title of this post and are laughing uncontrollably. I get it. Writing is hard. My students confirm this, and so do yours.

Many moms report that their students have ideas in their heads but can’t get them on paper. Let’s start fixing that today.

What creates this strange head-to-hand disconnect? One major reason is that students don’t organize their thoughts or plan their papers. Big mistake. They think it’s a time waster; but you know otherwise.

The following is a short activity on opinion writing, devised for success. Practice these four steps to writing with your students. They won’t actually be writing this essay, which is one of the reasons this activity works so well.

Your 5 Senses: Writing Prompts

Using your five senses can enhance your writing more than you might think possible. Here’s a successful author to tell us about it:

“Fiction operates through the senses. . . .The first and most obvious characteristic of fiction is that it deals with reality through what can be seen, heard, smelt, tasted, and touched.”
–Flannery O’Connor

Stories are experienced through our senses. So are personal narratives, description essays, and other modes of writing.

Think of Lucy slipping her hand into Aslan’s fur in a special moment in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, feeling the warmth of his presence.

Here are some examples of using senses, taken from The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien:

“There came a long rolling of great drums like thunder in the mountains, and then a braying of horns that shook the very stones and stunned men’s ears.” [sound, feeling]

“The stench of the sweating orcs about him was stifling, and he began to gasp with thirst.” [smell, feeling]

Sharpen your own senses and make your writing come alive as you dip into the over 20 writing prompts below.

Opinion: What is the secret of life?

What is the secret of life? Is it in biology? Music? Happiness? Eating the right food? Find a good mate?

For thousands of years, people have pondered the question of the secret of life.

You might think this is an exercise to keep you off the streets at night, but the answer you come up with can actually help define your life’s purpose, your philosophies, or your life’s goals. Or what you do tomorrow.

This is what others have said about the secret of life:

New Year BINGO Card

“Well, that wasn’t on my BINGO card!”

I’ve heard people say that when something surprising happens.

What do your children expect to happen in this new year? What do they hope will happen?

No one really knows for sure what will happen this year, but I could not have guessed the operations, house fires, and other unwanted events that happened last year. Nor could I have guessed the many happy days, answers to prayer, and successes.

Download this BINGO card and let your children fill it in with what they think or hope will happen this year. This is not prophesying or being a psychic. It is simply recording one’s hopes, dreams, fears, wishes, and ideas. On a BINGO card.

Your children and teens can fill the blocks with personal things, ideas about their families, or thoughts about their nation or the world.

Ideas:

Intro to Writing, Parts 1 and 2

SHARON’S BLOG

Intro to Writing

Do your students get stuck when they have to write a paragraph or an essay?

I have a secret I’d like to share with you.

Your students do not have to write a paragraph or a whole essay every time they put pencil to paper. One of the best ways to unplug the fear of writing is to do some of the prepare-for-writing tasks but never write the whole paragraph or essay.

It’s called practice, as when members of a basketball team practice dribbling or passing. The team does not play a game every time they get together. They practice pieces of the game.

So let’s practice brainstorming and organizing ideas.

Practical Writing Schedules for Your Students

In a writing class, students can be frustrated with how to break down the assignment into smaller, achievable tasks. When they hear, “Write an essay,” they don’t know where to begin. Sometimes they start writing without a plan, and the resulting essay shows how scattered their thoughts were. And sometimes there are weepy tears.

Use These Handy Writing Schedules

Put away the tissues and use our handy, practical, workable writing schedules.

The first schedule is for students who are writing papers that need no research.

The second is for those who are doing some research for their paper.

Let’s have a successful year in writing!

Free Grammar Lesson from “Let’s Eat Fifi”

Grammar Lesson 16: When to use “I” and “Me”

Song lyrics are notorious for misusing I and me. Here’s what I mean:

I gaze into the starry sky
And dream each night of you and I.

This corny yet grammatical travesty happens so often that it barely scratches our ears any more.

You already know when to use I and me in simple sentences:

I went to the movie and spilled my drink all over me.

The problem occurs when you are not alone, when you spill your drink on yourself and your friend. Do you use I? Do you use me?

Christmas Prompts

SHARON’S BLOG
An edict. A carol. A strange decoration.

What do all these have in common? They are all part of our fun Christmas prompts.

Enjoy these prompts created especially for 5th – 12th graders.

Ho, ho, ho, and away we go . . .

Give the Gift of Yourself This Christmas

SHARON’S BLOG
Do your children and teens wish they could communicate better with the special people in their lives? Sometimes it’s hard to talk or to come up with something brilliant to say. Other times they may have trouble connecting with family members.

At this time of year, they may be wondering what to give that special family member or friend. But do they know that once in a while, the family member doesn’t want a new item? What they really would value is something personal from your child.

The following pages allow your children and teens to jot down their thoughts and ideas and then share them with others. Their gift now becomes personal and meaningful.

Each prompt comes with a free, colorful page you can print out for them and they can write on. Collect them all and begin a journal, if you wish. If your children plan to give them as gifts, they can give certain pages as presents or gather all the pages into one gift.

These prompts are suitable for people in grades 5 – 12.

Ready? Let’s do this . . .

5 New Prompts for a New Year

SHARON’S BLOG
The beginning of a new year is a special time when your students can look back on their past year and cherish their hopes and dreams for the future. But do they know how to express those?

Here are five prompts geared to help them express their ideas through opinion, personal narrative, personification, and so on, as they think about and evaluate their lives.

Suitable for students in grades 5 – 12.

Let’s do this . . .

Violence and Martin Luther King Jr.

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for racial equality in the 1950s and early 1960s before he was assassinated, but he did not advocate violence as a means of reaching this goal.

Read the following excerpt taken from Stride Toward Freedom, written by him in 1958:

Poignant Christmas Memories

SHARON’S BLOG

Do you have Christmas season memories you hold dear? Here are a few of mine:

The year my mother saved her hard-earned cake-decorating money to buy a sewing machine for me when I was a college freshman. Little did I know that I would use that machine to sew little outfits for my firstborn son and to teach my daughter how to sew on it. In fact, she has it now, and she is teaching her daughters how to sew.

The year we skipped Christmas.

A Christmas Carol Born from Pain

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Henry was a poet and a literature professor. He had a wife. He had children. He had a solid reputation, and his poetry was popular.

And then his world caved in.

One spring, his country became embroiled in a civil war. Families were split apart. Bands of thieves roamed the country, ostensibly to fight but really to steal from civilians and kill them. Emotions ran high; it was painful for everyone.

Do You Have a Dream? Celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, let’s get to know King’s most famous speech a little better.

To hear the audio and read the transcript of “I Have a Dream,” click here. To view the speech on YouTube, click here.

This moving speech was originally given August 28, 1963, in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C. As Martin Luther King spoke of freedom for all Americans, regardless of their color, the statue of the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln was seated behind him. This gave even more meaning to King’s powerful speech.

What was King’s dream?

Letters from Jail: Apostle Paul and Martin Luther King Jr.

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Jail probably isn’t the optimal location from which to pen a letter. If I were to write one from jail, it would probably say, “Get me out of here!”

Paul’s Message

However, Apostle Paul writes from jail often and exudes no panic. In Philippians, while chained in a Roman prison, Paul tells the believers in Philippi to rejoice. He doesn’t throw it off as an aside; in fact, he uses the words “joy” or “rejoice” at least twelve times. At one point, he even

Dylan Thomas: His Christmas Memories and Yours

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

What is your favorite Christmas memory?

Dylan Thomas, a famous poet and author, wrote about his Christmas memories in the memoir essay “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” in which he remembers friends, toys, hijinks, relatives, and traditions of his childhood. His love of words and of the language makes this memoir a delight to read.

Excerpt

Below is an excerpt from it; you can read the whole memoir here and watch a televised rendition of it on YouTube here. For an extra-special treat, listen to the late Dylan Thomas reading his memoir here in his Welsh accent.
Here’s the excerpt from “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”:

Write a Christmas Carol

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

Which part of the Christmas account do you like the best?

Is it the Annunciation where an angel announces to Mary that she will have a child?

Is it the long journey to Bethlehem with no inn available when Mary and Joseph arrive?

Could it be when the angels burst into the night sky and sing to shepherds? Or perhaps when those exotic kings find the real King as a baby and then fool Herod to make their get-away?

Many of our Christmas carols highlight one part of the Christmas story. For instance, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” focuses on the night Jesus was born.

The First Christmas: You Are There

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

That first Christmas.

It’s easy to forget all the noise, confusion, exhaustion, rejection, and fear Mary and Joseph experienced. Though our nativity sets look peaceful and serene, I imagine things would have looked very different had we been there to observe those world-changing events.

Whom do you most identify with when you read the Christmas accounts in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2:40? That is, when you read the Bible accounts, which person do you feel closest to? Which one has some similarities to your life? Or think of this: Which person do you wish you could have been?

The Christmas Account from a New Perspective

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

You are probably very familiar with the accounts of Jesus’ birth found in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2:40. They are written in the omniscient point of view. That is, the writers tell us everything about everyone.

What if you read the account from the perspective of one of the Magi? Would the story be filled with curiosity and longing? What if the account were written by the wicked King Herod? How angry would he be that he missed his chance to kill the Christ Child?

Your Turn to Give for Christmas

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

Many stores and libraries this time of year have donation boxes to collect gifts for children. Some even have Christmas trees with places to hang mittens, warm hats, socks, and so forth. Those items will be distributed later to children who have no other way to get these needed items.

Christmas is the perfect time to think about giving something to others less fortunate than ourselves.

A Speech Without an “I”?

When newly elected president Theodore Roosevelt gave his inaugural address in 1905, he didn’t use the word “I.”

I read his short address and was surprised that so many of the things he said over one hundred years ago are still true today.

To date, he is the only U. S. president to give an inaugural speech without the word “I” in it.

Now it’s your turn: Click or tap to read Roosevelt’s speech. Then write a speech without the personal pronoun “I.”

To really challenge yourself, avoid ALL personal pronouns (I, me, my, mine, and so on).

Your speech can be on any topic you feel strongly about, whether serious or silly.

Unlocking the Secrets of Writing and Literature

Focus on Easter with These 7 Spiritual Prompts

Writing Prompts to Celebrate Dr. Seuss

Composition: Let’s Make it Easier

Your 5 Senses: Writing Prompts

Opinion: What is the secret of life?

New Year BINGO Card

Intro to Writing, Parts 1 and 2

Intro to Writing

Practical Writing Schedules for Your Students

Use These Handy Writing Schedules

Free Grammar Lesson from “Let’s Eat Fifi”

Grammar Lesson 16: When to use “I” and “Me”

Christmas Prompts

Give the Gift of Yourself This Christmas

5 New Prompts for a New Year

Violence and Martin Luther King Jr.

Poignant Christmas Memories

A Christmas Carol Born from Pain

Do You Have a Dream? Celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.

What was King’s dream?

Letters from Jail: Apostle Paul and Martin Luther King Jr.

Paul’s Message

Dylan Thomas: His Christmas Memories and Yours

Excerpt

Write a Christmas Carol

The First Christmas: You Are There

The Christmas Account from a New Perspective

Your Turn to Give for Christmas

A Speech Without an “I”?

Looking for something?

.