Curriculum Review: Brave Writer’s Jot It Down!
Time for another curriculum review! If you’ve been a reader for a while, you’ve likely noticed our love for Brave Writer. In fact, as we’ve grown and explored our homeschool style, we’ve switched up every area of our curriculum except for Brave Writer!
Brave Writer is a language arts program. It’s unique in the way it addresses the different aspects of writing. They offer literature guides (Dart for ages 8-10, Arrow for ages 11-12 and Boomerang for junior high and high school) that teach the mechanics of writing (grammar, punctuation, etc) through copywork and amazing read alouds. You can check out my review of the Arrow guides here.
For helping a child find their writing voice and develop as a writer, they offer online classes (which we haven’t tried yet) and writing programs for specific age groups. Today I’m focusing on Jot it Down, Brave Writer’s writing program for ages 5-8.
What is Jot it Down?
Jot it Down is a creative writing program. It’s designed for ages 5-8 or children who are uncomfortable with writing themselves. Children are born storytellers, but their inability to write (or write fast enough to keep up with the thoughts going through their mind) makes it frustrating. This frustration can choke out their creativity and make them hate writing projects.
Enter Jot it Down! Jot it Down provides 10 writing projects, each designed to take about a month. You work on the projects with your child and write down their thoughts for them, thus taking out the frustrating part, while still nurturing their creativity and writing voice.
Who is Jot it Down for?
While Jot it Down is geared for ages 5-8, it can be used for preschool and older ages too. If you have multiple children, you could easily work on projects together.
Jot it Down is a secular curriculum, so if you’re looking for something that is religious, this might not work for you. However, the curriculum is not anti-religion in any way. The writing projects could be easily tweaked. For example, the first project is about fairy tales. You read a specific fairy tale (possibly even multiple variations on it), then your child tells you the story in their own words and draws a picture to go with it.You could easily use this project for Bible stories as well!
Pros of Jot it Down
Perhaps one of my favorite aspects of Jot it Down is its flexibility. We have used this curriculum for several years and not completed every single project! Some projects we took months on (the animal mini-book being a prime example. You can read more about that project in this post – just scroll down to the science section). We also used the fairy tale project mentioned above to make a book of Greek myths when we studied Ancient Greece. This year we’re using the same idea for Shakespeare plays. This program is an excellent jumping off point.
Another thing I love about this program is that the projects are only half of the PDF you get. The first half is about the “Brave Writer Lifestyle” and how to implement that in your home. The Brave Writer Lifestyle is all about building connection with your kids so that learning feels like a joy, rather than a chore.
Another pro of Jot it Down is the cost. It’s only $49 and, while you could use the entire program in one year, you could easily space it out over years (which is what we have done). Even if you did every single project in one school year, you could repeat all of them the following year with completely different results. Add in the fact that you can use it for multiple children and it’s even more cost efficient!
Cons of Jot it Down
If you’re the kind of person that wants a curriculum where everything is completely spelled out for you and you prefer your teaching to be scripted, this curriculum might feel too open ended for you.
However, if you are a planner who likes to have checklists, Jot it Down now comes with a planner that helps you track skills and focus on week to week planning. This is also helpful if your state requires you to submit portfolios. The edition I bought didn’t come with this tool, but it sounds wonderful for those who are more Type A or have more stringent reporting requirements.
We have absolutely loved this curriculum and are a bit sad to be transitioning out of it this year. We will likely do a few more of the projects, but also a few of the projects for the next program, Partnership Writing. I think this is a wonderful curriculum that could be beneficial for just about any homeschooler. It can be casual enough to work for an unschooler, but you could make it fit in with any other homeschooling style just as easily. I think this could even be really fun for parents whose children are in public school. It’s such a fun way to connect with your children that sparks creativity and encourages a love of writing, rather than a nervousness or dread.
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