This Week in Homeschooling — August 2, 2026
Week of August 2, 2026
Creative writing is often the first subject to fall off the homeschool schedule, and good materials are part of the problem. This week's headline helps: a curriculum author posted 75 free imaginative-writing workshops for elementary students, organized into fiction craft lessons on character, setting, and plot, playful language work with poetry and story-writing games, and longer-term creative projects. Each is a multi-page workshop with a discussion-based opener for the parent and scaffolded planning, sketching, and writing steps for the student, downloadable as PDFs with no signup or purchase involved. The writing theme continues with a parent's search for a rigorous high school creative writing course after an expensive online one flopped. Elsewhere, a cautionary tale about trusting checked-off boxes in a self-paced video curriculum, and survivor stories for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries, chosen by the daughter-in-law of one.
The Headline Pick
Free Imaginative Writing Lessons for the Elementary Grades
WTM Forums: K-8 Curriculum Board
A curriculum author on the Well-Trained Mind forums shared about 75 free imaginative-writing workshops for elementary students on her site, The Flourish Workshop, organized into fiction craft, playful language and poetry, and longer-term creative projects. We read a few: each is a designed multi-page workshop with a teacher page (discussion-based opener, grade-level and prep notes) and scaffolded student steps from planning through writing. Free in the actual sense: direct PDFs, no signup, with upper-grade material coming next.
Practical Corner
Creative Writing courses for high school
WTM Forums: High School & Self-Education Board
A parent whose daughter writes 1,200 words a day reports that a $400 four-week Interlochen Online creative writing course delivered almost nothing, and asks what actually works for serious teen writers: craft books, mentor texts, and real peer critique. The thread is a useful gut-check on expensive-brand online courses.
Homeschooling a Child With Dyslexia: Stop Trying to Recreate Public School
Homeschooling with Dyslexia
This article outlines why the traditional public school model often fails neurodivergent learners and advocates for a 'deschooling' mindset. It offers specific shifts for parents, such as prioritizing audiobooks and multisensory instruction over rigid schedules and textbook-heavy curriculums.
What Are Executive Function Skills? A Parent-Friendly Guide
Mamateaches
This guide defines the core components of executive function and explains how they serve as the 'air traffic control' for a student's brain. It offers concrete strategies such as visual checklists and task breakdown techniques to help children who struggle with organization and focus.
Perspectives
No More Hiroshimas or Nagasakis: Passing on the Stories of Survivors
Pragmaticmom
For the anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a book list with weight behind it: the author's mother-in-law survived the Hiroshima bomb at age twelve and has never spoken of it. Four titles, from picture book to middle-grade novel, that put people behind the statistics.
Starting public high school for the first time as a former homeschooler—feeling terrified and could really use some prayers and advice!
r/homeschool
A 16-year-old student provides a rare first-person look at the anxieties involved in transitioning to public high school, including transcript placement and social navigation. The post identifies specific academic concerns like rapid note-taking and spelling that homeschooled students may feel unprepared for in a traditional setting.
Quick Links
- I am failing my kids and overwhelmed… I’m so embarrassed as a parent… long story below. (r/homeschool) — A working parent's long, candid account of discovering that years of checked-off video-curriculum assignments had been faked. The short version: if your setup depends on self-paced work, audit the actual work, not the checklist.