Kill 2 Birds with One Stone

Draw Write Now is an absolutely wonderful way to teach your children writing and art skills all at one time! My kids still get the books off the shelf and do the drawings even though they have done them all several times!

Essentially, each lesson has step by step examples for the kids to follow. The first picture has a couple of lines drawn, the next adds a few more lines, and within a few minutes they have a picture to color! On the left hand page is a completed picture that has been colored in and the sentences for them to write to practice handwriting skills. It really builds their confidence in their art and writing skills. As an added bonus, some of the handwriting sentences teach facts about science or history or whatever the picture happens to be. Sometimes, I had my kids write their own story to go with the picture and counted it towards their creative writing for the day!

The only problem with this series is that it is only available in manuscript. Since we were using D'Nealian writing and older child was doing cursive already, I had to write out the sentences for them to copy down in the correct format. I found that the program was well worth that little inconvenience though.

Each book can be purchased for around $9, which is a real bargain! Some places even sell them in sets at a greater discount. They are well worth the investment, since they can be used for art practice for years! (They are non-consumable by the way)

There is a wide variety of topics to choose from, but for your younger children, I would start with book 1. The further up you go, the more complicated the drawings become. Book 1 covers farmyard animals and story characters, Book 2 covers Columbus and fall, Book 3 is Indians and Pilgrims, Book 4 is Artic and Anarctic, Book 5 is the U.S., Book 6 is Animals and their habitats, Book 7 is Forest animals, and Book 8 is Desert animals.