The Creative Writing Made Easy series was created ten years ago after Jan taught numerous creative writing classes and noticed that some children were having a tough time catching on and even more homeschool moms were having a tough time teaching it. She employed fun activities in her classroom to hook the young writers and found that along with prewriting, brainstorming, and gentle grading even the most reluctant writers were diving into the writing pool. Thus the Five Writing Superpower method was born and the rest is history!
We service both homeschools and charter schools. Having a neutral version for charter schools enables them to enjoy the educational success our books have to offer for all students.
Jan May is homeschool publisher, author and freelance writer and contributor to The Old Schoolhouse , Thriving Family and Clubhouse Jr. Magazines. She is also veteran homeschool mother of two who loved to do hands on activities with her children. With over 20 years of teaching experience, her love for creative writing and her passion for well-educated children with godly character have formed the content of these books.
She is a graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature and has a college background in Biblical Studies and Christian Education from North Central University, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
For Charter School orders send PO to: JLMAY63@AOL.COM
Reviews
Isabel's Secret
Meadow Rue Merrill, an award-winning journalist and author says...
"ISABEL’S SECRET is a book for 8-12 year old girls that kept my ten year old captivated! She couldn’t wait for me to review it—she snatched it and read it in a day. This is a great book about culture and a girl’s dream. Isabel is a sweet girl, kind and caring. My daughter said she'd give it more than five stars if she could!"
Creative Writing Made Easy with Isabel’s Closet and Isabel’s Secret literally rocked our world. For at least four years, I have been struggling to teach my daughter to write. I knew she had the heart of a storyteller, but I could not seem to help her to get all of her stories on paper. Hand her a piece of paper and she would freeze, cry, and fight her way through each assignment. Until we found this series. It transformed writing time from a terror into a delight! ~Amy Blevins, homeschool mom with Bow of Bronze blogger
I was thrilled to use this program with my daughter, and even more thrilled when she chose to do it first thing every day, and was upset when she didn’t see it in her workboxes! This curriculum spoke to her where she was, and it sparked her imagination; most of all, though, it made her WANT to write! She would get so involved in her characters and their stories that she just HAD to get them down on paper. ~Carrie Hernandez, Hearts at Home
Horses. A Colorado ranch. Two best friends. One with a secret. What a great set-up for a middle-grade novel! Isabel proclaims throughout the book, “Winners never quit and quitters never win, because I serve the mighty God that lives deep within!” With fast-moving, engaging prose, an interesting mystery, and spiritual themes, Isabel’s Secret would make a delightful gift for any eight-to-twelve year old girl. ~Author and Award Winning Journalist, Meadow Rue Merrill
Jan has purposefully created this curriculum for Christian students guiding them through the process of developing a character that trusts God’s timing, protection, provision and design as well as growing in character and faith. If you are a Christian homeschooling parent of a girl 8 to 12 years old, you’ll want to check out this God-centered writing curriculum. As a former public school teacher and an experienced Christian homeschooling parent, I can easily say that I love this curriculum! ~Lynda Akert, Denver Homeschool Examiner
Isabel’s Secret is a book for 8-12 year old girls that kept my ten year old captivated. She couldn’t wait for me to review it—she snatched it and read it in a day, she is now rereading it! This is a great book about culture and a girl’s dream. My daughter said she'd give it more than five stars if she could. ~Author Laura Vernet Hilton
Paper Doll and Craft Book
Lynda Ackert, Denver Homeschool Examiner writes...
A Writing Process Curriculum
The Creative Writing Made Easy! portion of the curriculum has been designed to easily guide the student through the writing process in easy to digest bits of instruction. It guides the student through the development of character, themes and plot, the writing (beginning, middle and end) as well as the editing and compilation of a complete story. Throughout questions are asked to stir the imagination and graphic organizers and fill-in-the-blank sections are included for the student to use.
A Faith-Based Curriculum
Jan has purposefully created this curriculum for Christian students. Students are guided through the process of developing a character that trusts God’s timing, protection, provision and design as well as growing in character and faith. As a former elementary public school teacher and an experienced Christian homeschooling parent, I can easily say that I love this curriculum. It is a well designed faith-based curriculum that provides students with solid, interactive writing instruction while providing wonderful opportunities for faith-based thought and discussion."
"This book and curriculum set from New Millennium Girl Books rocked our socks off! My daughter is having so much fun creating beautiful paper dolls and clothing while learning to write her very own fiction novel."
The Easiest Creative Writing Curriculum
for a Struggling Learner
May 17, 2016 by Sarah Shelton
My oldest daughter is bright, creative and witty. She is also dyslexic and didn’t start reading fluently until the 4th grade. It has been so difficult to get my daughter to read that I hadn’t even considered any sort of writing curriculum. We were just working on learning how to read without getting frustrated and being able to just simply enjoy books without any tears! This has been a long, hard road for us, but I am happy to say that last year, at 10 years old she was reading fluently without any help from me. I encouraged her with simple books and we slowly worked our way up to to harder chapter books. I found she enjoyed any books about animals and horses the best. So that is what she read the most of!
Carrie my friend, knew that my daughter adored horses, so at the beginning of the school year she gave me her copy of Isabel’s Secret, which is the novel that was created as the spine for the Creative Writing Made Easy Curriculum from New Millenium Girls Books. My daughter was so excited just by the cover of the book! She immediately started devouring this novel! She finished it within two weeks which is a huge accomplishment for her! After seeing how much she enjoyed the story, I thought that it would be a great time to introduce the creative writing portion of the curriculum.
I ordered the digital version of Creative Writing Made Easy along with the companion Isabel’s Closet Paper Doll and Craft Book. I chose the digital version because I have 3 girls and I wanted to be able to reuse this with my other girls as they get older. It was also easier for me to send the files to the UPS Store with my teacher discount card and pick up a nice, bound copy. I printed the paper doll book at home so we could print the dolls on cardstock and laminate them. We store our dolls and doll clothes in a pendaflex folder that we pull out during the craft time.
To get the most out of this curriculum I recommend the complete set:
Creative Writing Made Easy:
Your students will be guided step by step in creating an adventure where both the student and her characters grow in faith towards God. Each of the 12 lessons will teach the basics of creative writing such as:
o Sensory Settings
o Punch up Dialogue
o Create Plots that build Christian Faith
Each Lesson has three sections:
o Learning Time
o Writing Time
o Craft Time
Isabel’s Closet Paper Doll and Craft Book:
Each lesson contains a paper doll project where the students design their own paper doll clothes, make a bedroom folder closet, and draw illustrations to complete their story.
What my 11 year old, fifth grade daughter thought of this curriculum:
She absolutely adores this curriculum! I never had to schedule this into our school day. Writing is her favorite part of the day now! Every day when we were finished with school she would pull her Creative Writing Made Easy book out and she would get to work! She would read her lesson all on her own and start doing the exercises. I have no set schedule with this curriculum, I just let her work on it at her own pace. Sometimes she will read the lesson and do a little bit of the writing and save the rest of it for another day, sometimes she will do an entire lesson in one setting.
I asked her what her favorite part of the writing has been and she loved the lesson on Creating a Plot. She really enjoyed using her imagination to write down the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of things you could experience in the town she was writing about. She also enjoyed the story webs. Here is a sample of her first story web. Please ignore the transposed letters and spelling. I am not pushing her on these right now and just letting her enjoy writing. Editing will come later.
Isn’t the horse the cutest? It is found on pages throughout the entire book!
The craft time has become a sweet time with all of my girls. My oldest gets the paper doll book out and she shares it with my 8 yo and 5 yo. They all work together to color and design the clothes and create the scenes.
My thoughts:
I never even considered that my daughter was ready for writing. She has had many struggles with reading, with still reversing her letters, and awful spelling. I just didn’t even think a real writing curriculum was an option. We have always done verbal narration and dictation because writing and reading was so stressful for her. I am so impressed with Creative Writing Made Easy. It really is EASY! My daughter has OWNED this curriculum. She has made it completely her own and taken it upon herself to make sure she is working on it at a pace that is comfortable for her learning style.
I also love the independence of this curriculum. I usually dread writing because it is so time consuming to teach. With multiple children, and working from home I have to use things that my children can do independently. Other than reading the wonderful stories she writes, I have had to do nothing with it. When she brings it to me to show me her work I am so pleased with how well she is writing. The text is written in such an easy to understand and gentle way. There have been no tears with this writing curriculum. There has been nothing but smiles and great joy!
~Sarah is a wife, daughter of the King and Granola Mama to 4 children ages 16-5. She is a Charlotte Mason style homeschooler and has been homeschooling for 13 years now. She is still trying to find the balance between work and keeping a home and says she can only do it by the Grace of God, Coffee and Green Smoothies!