Young Writer’s Program

November 1^st I peeked into NaNoWriMo’s Young Writer’s Program (YWP) to get some ideas to use with my elementary school-aged children. Yes, I had tricked talked them into volunteering to write every day for the entire month of November.

How?

With the promise that we would do NaNo instead of spelling and other Language Arts activities. My kids hate spelling and are looking forward to the day when they can use word processing programs like the rest of us to correct spelling mistakes. Kind of like kids waiting to use calculators to total up the money in their piggy banks.

I don’t know why, but I had assumed that the YWP was only for teens. It’s not!

YWP has a schedule worked out from first grade on up. Young writers get to set their own word goals (based on the min/max chart suggestions). If I had checked out the website sooner, I would have walked my kids through the workbook pages that teach how to write a novel.

The YWP website is also a bit more flashy than the basic NaNoWriMo site. I had to sign up on the YWP site (sorry for counting myself twice Mr. Baty!) in order to be buddies with my kids. Now we can all watch each other’s word count bars grow. Just like with the grown-up site, kids can post author info, book info, a photo, etc.

What about the pep talks? YWP has that covered, too. Children’s writers like Avi and Erin Hunter (all four authors who make her up) are on schedule to encourage our young folk on their big writing task.

YVP has something else NaNoWriMo doesn’t have. Stickers, buttons, and T-shirts that say “I Eat Books for Breakfast.” They also have dares (writer’s prompts to us adults) to get the kids thinking.

I’m typing this at the close of Day 5. My kids tell me they have NaNoFever. My 8 year old has penned 750 complaint-free words. My 6 year old is holding strong at 80 words. They want to work on their NaNo books first thing in the morning. What else could a writer-mom ask for?

Oh, and don’t tell them, but every time they ask me, “Mom, how do you spell _____?” They are working on their spelling. Thank you Young Writer’s Program!