The Blank Paper Effect

It seems people who like to blog like to look at a blank piece of paper and begin writing. There is something good about coming up with your own thoughts and somehow in your own way putting them down on paper. (In our case, a computer screen.)
I believe it is very much like this also with children. There is a good place and time for workbooks, but how much better a blank piece of paper? Some say it's plain and unmotivating. I can see where it would have to be jump started if all a child was use to was filling in the blanks. But once they felt the freedom of expressing themselves, oh..... think of the possibilities.

What can a child do with a blank piece of paper? They can draw for you what they've learned with all the details they picked up along the way. A child can have fun drawing the houses from whatever time period you're studying. Drawing battles and labeling them is like a stamp of ink upon their memory. How about drawing a famous character with the fashion of that day? They can sketch weapons, inventions, vehicles of the time. The blank paper is a friend to us mothers wanting to instill a love for learning.

As they get older and begin to learn to write, given time, a blank piece of paper will fill out with words.
Their spelling and vocabulary will improve and blank papers will give wings to their creativity.
I use composition books for their copy work and dictation. I have them correct their spelling on a blank piece of paper. They must compose a sentence for their misspellings. Here's a few:

- We have a certain sink so big I can fit a bicycle in it!
- I have to write a sentence about a cell.
- The central is the middle.
- I object to the language of science!
- Weak energy is of no use.
-If you get a clock in working order it would include lots of minutes.

If the child can put it down on a blank piece of paper then the child is learning and retaining it.

The Blank Paper Effect-
Trying it for a season ,without giving up will make a believer out of you.