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Online Writing Curriculum for Elementary Students

While Time4Learning teaches the essential elements of the writing process via interactive lessons and practice activities, many parents have reported that they want more. That’s where Time4Writing comes in. Each eight-week elementary writing course from Time4Writing gives students access to one-on-one feedback from a certified writing teacher. This program is great for homeschoolers as a core writing curriculum or writing supplement.

At the elementary level, Time4Writing offers targeted instruction in areas such as sentence writing, paragraph writing, grammar and mechanics, and introductory essay writing. Courses are available in all levels, whether your young writer is ready for beginning, intermediate, or advanced instruction. See below for the full course catalog and overviews.

  • Homeschool.com Top 100 2019
  • Safe4Kids
  • Cathy Duffy Top 100 2017
  • iParenting Media Award Winner

Basic Level Elementary Writing Courses

Beginning in second grade, students are ready for formal grammar instruction. In this course, elementary writers will get familiar with the parts of speech, including how to recognize them and use them in sentences. Students will begin to understand the subject and predicate in a sentence, as well as how to identify sentence fragments. Students will also be introduced to proofreading strategies and learn basic capitalization rules.

In this unit students are introduced to the many types of nouns including common nouns, proper nouns, concrete nouns, and abstract nouns. By the end of the unit, they will be able to differentiate between the types and use each appropriately.
In this unit, students learn about all the types of pronouns, and when to use them. They also will explore adjectives and how to recognize and use them in sentences.
In this unit, students study action, helping, and being verbs, and their roles in strong sentences.
In this unit, students get acquainted with the most common rules of capitalization and learn to apply them in their writing.
In this unit, students begin identifying run-on sentences and sentence fragments and learn how to correct them.
In this unit, students learn how to find the subject in a sentence as well as how to write a complete sentence that includes the subject.
In this unit, students learn how to find the predicate in a sentence as well as how to write a complete sentence including the predicate.
In this unit, students examine the importance of reviewing their writing and utilize simple proofreading strategies.

The core of learning how to write well begins with forming strong sentences. In this course students discover the power of descriptive details to form interesting sentences. They learn what it means to write (and revise) a complete sentence. They will also be introduced to the four sentence types, and the importance of subject-verb agreement.

In this unit, students are introduced to two of the main sentence types: declarative and interrogative sentences.
In this unit, students learn about declarative and exclamatory sentences and how and when to use them.
In this unit, students study the plural and possessive forms of nouns and how to differentiate between them.
In this unit, students examine how to make subjects and verbs agree in number (singular or plural.)
In this unit, students begin understanding the rules of commas and comma placement.
In this unit, students learn how to shorten two words into a single word using proper rules of contractions.
In this unit, students find out that the English language can be bewildering and how to properly identify and spell words that are sometimes confused.
Taking all they’ve learned from the previous units, students will practice creating and proofreading sentences.

Intermediate Level Elementary Writing Courses

In this unit, students will review sentence writing and are introduced to using a topic sentence to express the main idea of a paragraph.
In this unit, students learn about using details to develop and support the main idea of a paragraph.
In this unit, students study about closing sentences and how they restate the main idea of the paragraph.
In this unit, students examine the differences between sentences that contain one thought and those that contain two or more.
In this unit, students begin to understand how to construct sentences so that they flow from one to another.
In this unit, students learn how to use adjectives to create interest in their writing.
In this unit, students will take what they’ve learned in previous lessons and apply it to writing a descriptive paragraph.
In this unit, students will take what they’ve learned in previous lessons and apply it to writing a narrative paragraph.

Advanced Level Elementary Writing Courses

Once students have studied proper grammar, sentence structure, and paragraph writing, they are ready to combine those skills into writing a formal essay. This course allows young writers to practice the various types of paragraphs, such as expository, narrative, and persuasive paragraphs. This will lead to the completion of a full five paragraph narrative essay by end of course.

In this unit, students will review the difference between a fact and an opinion and will practice comparing and contrasting facts.
In this unit, students learn how to write an expository paragraph.
In this unit, students learn how to write a persuasive paragraph.
In this unit, students study how to identify the proper tenses of verbs and how to improve their sentences by using more specific verbs.
In this unit, students examine how adverbs are used in sentences and how they benefit paragraph writing.
In this unit, students are introduced to the narrative elements of setting, character, and plot.
In this unit, students will take what they’ve learned in previous lessons and apply it to writing a narrative essay.
In this unit, students will take what they’ve learned in previous lessons and apply it to writing a five paragraph essay.

One of the most important tools in any writer’s toolbox is understanding the writing process. In this course, students will delve into prewriting, planning, drafting, revising, and editing. Using the exciting topic of animal defense mechanisms, students begin learning important research tactics. Finally, they will use what they discover to tell a “Wild Animal Tale” that will interest the reader.

Prewriting is one of the most important parts of the writing process, yet it is the one most often overlooked. The more time devoted to prewriting, the smoother the rest of the writing process will go. The course begins by teaching students the elements of a narrative essay. Students will then focus their narrative around a wild animal of their choosing and learn how to take notes as they research their animal. They will also learn how to use a graphic organizer to prepare the actual draft of their narrative essay.
In the planning phase of Narrative Writing, students will use character development maps and story maps. With the character maps, writers will expand on their chosen animal and learn how they fit into the overall plot of their narrative. With the story map, students will lay out the details of their story’s plot, the setting, problem, and solution.
During the drafting stage of the course, students take a first pass at the beginning, middle, and endings of their narrative essay. During this step they will uncover how temporal words and phrases help transition between people and places in a story. To make their narrative essay more engaging they learn how to incorporate sensory details. Finally, they gain the knowledge needed to use dialogue to move the story forward.
The revising step in the Narrative Writing course is exactly as you’d expect. Students learn how to rework what they wrote. The goal in this phase is to look critically at the essay and see where it can be improved before it’s finalized, for example, would precise verbs, internal dialogue or word choice make it better?
During the editing phase, students will receive instruction on how to spot errors and omissions in their own writing and learn how to correct them.

This course is an introduction to young writers on how to do basic research on a topic as well as how to use the writing process to turn their research into usable information. Within the course, students will choose a wild animal to study about and will create a multimedia slideshow using the information they find. Students will get practice in all five areas of the writing process including prewriting, planning, drafting, editing, and revising.

*This is an advanced course, designed for students with some technical know-how.

In the prewriting stage of Informative Writing, students will start out by selecting an animal to research and write about. As part of the process, they will learn note taking skills and how to organize facts and media they collect in a graphic organizer.
In the planning phase of Informative Writing, students will use a slideshow planning template. The template will help them choose the most important facts and links to share, as well as graphics to use in helping tell their story.
The drafting phase of Informative Writing entails more than just copying and pasting facts and stats onto a slide. Students will use their template to create an outline. The outline will then be used to write complete paragraphs of information, which will be displayed in a creative slideshow format.
The revising stage of Informative Writing requires students to narrow in on the words they’ve chosen and the sentences they’ve written to see if they can be improved.
The editing phase of Informative Writing is the last step in the course. Seeing grammar and spelling errors in someone else’s writing is actually much easier than finding it in one’s own work. Students will learn how to edit their slideshow by focusing in on the most common issues in grammar and mechanics.

Add a Time4Writing Course

Time4Learning.com combines 3,000+ multimedia lessons, printable worksheets and graded activities in a student-paced environment that brings concepts to life. By adding Time4Writing courses, parents give their students access to weekly online lessons and a certified writing instructor whose personalized feedback will build their writing skills.

As a homeschooling mom I am so relieved to find a course that allows my child access to objective feedback from a writing instructor. — Parent of an Elementary Paragraph Writing student

After you have completed your Time4Learning registration, head to your Parent Dashboard to add on the Elementary Time4Writing Course of your choice.

Other Available Courses

Middle School
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Middle School Writing Courses
High School
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High School Writing Courses

PreK - 8th

$19.95
  • Monthly, first student
  • ($14.95 monthly for each additional student)

9th - 12th

$30.00
  • Monthly, per student
  • (Includes 4 courses per student)

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