The Creative Writer Level 1: Five Finger Exercises

The Creative Writer Level 1: Five Finger Exercises by Boris Fishman

A complete creative writing course for 5-8th graders with so much to like! I'll just list below all the great features of this program:

• The price is amazing! And you get a truly quality course!
• 36 weeks of lessons. You get 1 lesson per week, so you can break it however you want: do it all in a single day, or break into smaller daily assignments.
• Many samples of great literature are used (Rapunzel, Tom Sawyer, Robin Hood, etc.) and are included in the text. This book is truly complete! 
• Teacher helps are included in the back of the book.
• The lessons are interesting, incremental, easy to implement, easy to understand.
• The book is non-consumable, so you can use it with multiple students in your home.

The first 18 weeks are a study of fiction writing and include lessons in plot, characterization, dialogue, point of view, and more. The second 18 weeks are a study of writing poetry, and includes fun lessons on acronyms, crosswords puzzles, poetic devices, rhyming poetry, shaped poetry, and much more.

My only caution is that I personally feel this course would be better suited to a 7-8th grader. It's not the assignments that are difficult, or the lessons themselves. But, the excerpts from classic literature (such as Pyle's Robin Hood) are probably above the reading level of many 5th-6th graders. Of course, Mom, you can get involved by doing those sections as read-alouds, because we all know that our kiddoes comprehend far above their reading level!

Overall, this course is fantastic! A great investment!