Draw Write Now Animals and Habitats
Draw Write Now is not only an engaging copywork and printing program, but also blends joyful art, drawing, mapping, geography and history concepts easily and seamlessly. These books really present a 'living education' to children. I call this a 'whole-hearted' review because I can, with my whole heart, give a glowing report of our experience with these wonderful books. (I love it when that happens!)
I am overjoyed to share with you my review of the Draw Write Now boxed set. The wonderful people at Draw Write Now were very kind to send it to me and I am so grateful!
Program Overview
Draw Write Now is written by Marie Hablitzel and Kim Stitzer.
The bottom of each book describes Draw Write Now as A Drawing and Handwriting Course for Kids!
I've realized, however, that this program is so much more than simply writing and drawing. This program introduces lessons in mapping, nature study, habitats around the world, geography, history, and also encourages creative thinking and independent learning.
The Box Set includes all 8 books in the program. The books are not levelled, as I originally thought. Book 1 is not easier than book 7 or 8- they simply have different themes. They all have very similar styles of drawing lessons and comparable copywork selections.
These are non-consumable, high quality, and can be used over and over for years to come. This is particularly exciting for me as many of the copywork and printing/handwriting programs I've seen are consumable, which means they are workbook style where a new book is needed for each level for each child. It gets costly!
The themes for the books offer a great variety of topics and subjects to draw and write about. Some examples include: Farm Animals, Storybook Characters, Animals and Habitats (On Land, Ponds and Rivers, Oceans), Animals of the World, The Pilgrims, and more. See all the themes of each book
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The Draw Write Now Boxed Set
comes with all the books in a beautiful, sturdy box folder with lovely pictures on the outside. I highly recommend, if you do purchase Draw Write Now – get the boxed set. The variety has been a huge motivator and enjoyment for our children. Also, because we have three children, they have all been able to easily and happily choose their own lessons in their own books and work all at the same time. If we didn't have enough books to go around, I know our kids would be fighting over Draw Write Now!
How To Use Draw Write Now
The day we received the Boxed Set in the mail, our children were eager to start with the program. Immediately, our daughter (she's 8) dove right in. Because I didn't have a plan yet, I just allowed her to choose the lesson that appealed the most to her. I was not at all surprised that she picked the "Hen" lesson from Book One. (She loves her five pet hens!)
We decided to use our Nature Journals for our Draw Write Now pages. It just seemed an appropriate place to include such pretty pictures and copywork to match. I find that putting the childrens' copywork in a book they are proud of (such as a Common Place book or Nature Journal) really encourages them to do their very best to make their work beautiful and complete.
Having said this, you can use any simply notebook for the Draw Write Now program, but you will need one as children do not write in the workbooks.
This program is incredibly easy to use, we simply opened up the books and followed the instructions.
Here's how each lesson works:
1. Introduce the Subject – just a simple introduction to the subject is good, although you could also choose to read a book or do some research on the subject, depending on what you will be drawing/writing about. For the "Hen" page, we looked at one of our favourite young science Usborne books, Eggs and Chicks.
2. Draw the Subject – can I tell you how excited my children are that they get to draw FIRST!? The children draw the subject with a pencil by following along with the step by step lesson given in the book. I usually do not need to help my daughter. She wants to work independently and does so with quite a bit of success. However, with my sons I do sometimes help them through this step, simply showing them where the lines fall and which lines will eventually be erased, etc.
3. Draw the Background – this is where the children can use their imagination or choose to copy the background given. My children often do a combination of these two ideas.
4. Practice Handwriting – in our homeschool, we call this part Copywork. I guess that's the Charlotte Mason in us. Here the children simply copy the sentences in their best printing below the picture they have just created. The results are beautiful! For this, we simply cut out a rectangle of lined paper to cut and paste below their artwork. The results were really pleasing visually, something the children were very proud of!
5. Color the Picture – now the children add color details. Our children mostly used pencil crayons, however, you could use crayons, markers, whichever medium you prefer.
And then… the children marvel at the beautiful work they've created!
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| Audrey loves hens of all kinds, so she also decided to do the Little Red Hen from the Story Book Characters section of Book One. This is the final product, beautiful, isn't it?! |
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| How Audrey displayed her first two Draw Write Now lessons in her Nature Journal. |
Mapping Activities with Draw Write Now
There are several different mapping activities/lessons to work through in the Draw Write Now books. Examples include a globe showing how Columbus sailed west, a map of the contour of the USA and surrounding countries/oceans, a map of the Antarctic, and a map of the Savannahs of Africa.We chose to start with a Lesson which walked us through mapping the Continents in a very simplistic way. I really love the idea because I see how children remember information, and this is one of the key ways my kids tend to recall things. They sketch it out with big bold colors and basic shapes with text. We would progress from here to try to outline a more realistic shape of that Continent.
Here's a peak at the lesson from Book 7:
A Happy Ending with Draw Write Now…
I recently sent this little testimonial to Kim (she's great, by the way) at Draw Write Now:
Last week, as we were working on our Nature Journals, my daughter became very upset. She loves to draw, sketch, and add pages to her journal, so it surprised me when all of a sudden she was in tears! She was trying desperately to draw an owl for our study of birds of prey. The step-by-step print-out I had placed before her was just causing frustration and a feeling of defeat. Even after I reassured her that her owl was indeed really good (it was!), and promised to help in any way she needed, she continued to sniff and cry.
The poor girl is such a tender heart and longs to draw well. After a few moments of wondering what to do to help – I remembered there was an owl in one of the Draw Write Now books. I asked her if she would like to try to do the one from Draw Write Now instead and she lit up and stopped crying immediately.
I found the page and she busily went to work. After about 20 minutes she ran to me beaming from ear to ear. She had drawn and coloured the owl very successfully and was feeling very content and proud of her work. So, Draw Write Now saved the morning, and once again, I was reminded of how wonderful this program is for instilling confidence in my young artist. Thanks so much. These moments make a homeschooler's day!
We love the Variety!
One of the most lovely things about using Draw Write Now for copywork and art has been the variety! This is another reason I would encourage getting the Boxed Set. All three of our children have truly enjoyed picking out their own lessons to accomplish. This has given them a sense of ownership and control over what work they do. Having said this though, I have no concerns because I know any lesson they work on will be giving them great practice in handwriting and will be developing many other skills.
If you cannot choose the Boxed Set, starting with one of the many books will still offer quite a bit of variety for your child as each book includes on average about 25 different lessons and ideas.
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| Audrey loved the 'girl' drawing from the Kids and Critters section of Book One. She started with the word 'girl' and by following the instructions, turned it into a beautiful picture of a girl jumping rope! Really neat! |
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| Another Draw Write Now page with the 'girl' project up top and a lesson about Swans below. |
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| Alex (age 6) loves to flip through the Draw Write Now books and choose his copywork and drawing lessons for the week. |
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| Enjoying choosing which lesson to work on! |
Using Draw Write Now with a Younger Child
I consider Alex, our youngest, to be a fairly young scholar. At six-years-old he's ready for short lessons and focus on copywork and art but often is not able to sit as long or do as much printing as his older siblings.
Alex, however, really loves Draw Write Now and is very drawn to the bright pictures and simple instructions.
I found Draw Write Now very easy to adapt for a younger child.
One thing we did is I helped him draw by drawing the picture step by step along with him. As I drew each step, he would watch and then add his own lines like the ones I had drawn.
We also simplified the copywork for him so that it was broken down into more doable words and portions for him.
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| A great book for introducing the subject of "bats". |
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| Alex's finished pencil sketch and a few simple copywork words. |
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| After adding colour and more words, Alex's 'simplified' project looks like this. He was proud of his work and wanted to do more! |
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| A few days later, with my help doing the drawing, Alex accomplished this page! |
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| Simplified copywork is easy to add. |
The REALLY neat thing about this program and Alex is that after about a few weeks of doing Draw Write Now, he pulls it out and does projects completely on his own, like this one –
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| Everything about this just makes me happy… *chuckle* |
More of our Draw Write Now work:
One of the great things about this program is how versatile it is. We have pulled out these books several times to use the art lessons. Through our Nature Studies, for example, we are often drawing birds to add to our journals. The Golden Eagle lesson below was one we used in our study of Birds of Prey.
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| Simon's Golden Eagle (this is incredible for him!) |
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| Another art lesson we used for our study of Birds of Prey. |
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Owls are Birds of Prey, too! |
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| Audrey chose to recreate the cover of the Boxed Set because she loved it so much! |
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| The other side of the Boxed Set cover (by Audrey). |
What the Kids Think…
Alex, age 6
Alex enjoys Draw Write Now far more than I expected. Being younger, I wasn't sure if this program would be suited to him. However, he has gravitated to the simplicity of the lessons and is thriving with them. Just the other day, he pulled out a Draw Write Now book and accomplished an entire lesson on his own! I was blown away! I didn't ask him to do it, he just 'wanted to'!
"I love it because I like doing it for art projects. I love the Robin in Book 6." -AlexHere is the work he was able to do on his own after about two weeks with Draw Write Now! I was so thrilled!
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| The Robin, by Alex (age 6) |
Audrey, age 8
Audrey has expressed over and over that this program is her absolute favorite . She is naturally artistic and enjoys drawing, coloring, and doing copywork – so it didn't surprise me that Draw Write Now was a perfect fit for her. Because she longs to draw well, the lessons have been a blessing. She has created beautiful pieces of work independently and is growing in her confidence as an artist and in printing.
This is the program she asks to do every day. She can't praise it enough!"I LOVE(!) the Draw Write Now books because you do the drawing first and I love to draw. I like how my picture looks and I like how they do the steps." -Audrey
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| The Miner, by Audrey (age 8) |
Simon, age 9
Simon doesn't usually gravitate towards art. He also doesn't really enjoy copywork. So, this program was not one I anticipated him liking. The funny thing is – he actually really loves Draw Write Now! The art lessons are so simply laid out that he can follow along and enjoy much success with them, even though he isn't a natural 'artist', as they say. This is great for building his confidence and creating a desire within him to work hard and do his best. The copywork is simple enough and never intimidating, so he accomplishes it quite well. All in all, he enjoys Draw Write Now more than he has enjoyed the other copywork and drawing programs we have used."8 stars out of 10. I like it." -Simon (he's a man of few words…)
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| Golden Eagles, by Simon (age 9) |
A couple more things about Draw Write Now…
The more I use these books and read through each title, the more I love what I see. Every book is similar but slightly different in what it offers. Many of the pages include a themed question to be read and answered. For example, When can a gazelle run faster than a cheetah? and Why are porcupine quills hard to remove?Answers are found in corresponding sections at the end of each unit. These sections also often include other tid-bits of information pertaining to the theme. These books are seriously full of hidden nuggets everywhere!
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| The Teaching Tips sections offer things like pointers on accomplishing the art, maps (for book 6 there is a map of the Earth's major biomes as well as diagrams of Ponds and Rivers and Oceans which you can see in the bottom right picture above and larger, below.) |
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| Teaching Tips section of Book 6 |
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| The Draw What You See, Draw from Your Imagination, and Draw Your World sections are really neat. Each book is different. In Book 2, for Draw What You See tips and encouragement are given for the child to notice how simple it is to draw people using circles, dots for eyes, lines for mouths, and rectangles for bodies, etc. In Book 6, for Draw Your World children are encouraged to look through a window and take note of horizon lines depending on their point of view (in photo above), ideas are also given for how to draw backgrounds given point of view. In Book 1, for Draw from You Imagination children use drawings to tell their own story and create easy story characters. |
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| The Table of Contents for each book is great because it is friendly for readers and non-readers alike! The visual grid works wonders for finding what we're looking for and building the skill they need to look something up in a Table of Contents at a beginner level. |
Draw Write Now Animals and Habitats
Source: http://www.theunplugged.family/2015/04/a-detailed-and-whole-hearted-review-of/
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