Posted by Cindy on August 20, 2007
Here’s a fun way to get your kids to write! Cut out interesting pictures from magazines and paste them on card stock. Let your child choose a picture, then write a story that goes along with it.
Here’s the picture Mahayla chose this week. This assignment really inspired her. Before we began, I chose a picture and orally told a story with lots of detail so she would see that I was looking for a story rather than a description of the picture. I encouraged her to tell her story orally, too, before writing it in order to get her thoughts flowing.
“The Mischievous Dog”
Once on a sunny day in May, a girl named Kiri was filling up a tub to give her dog, Perry, bath. When finally she was ready, Kiri called her dog Perry really loud so she was sure he would hear her. But, alas, Perry would not come. Where could he be?
Kiri checked everywhere, until finally she spotted him. He was running towards his dog house. Kiri ran after him. She found Perry lying on the floor of his dog house pretending he was asleep. But Kiri knew better! She stepped outside and waited for him to peek out. Very soon he did, so she caught him by the collar and drug him to the tub.
After a lot of fighting with him, she finally finished the bath! Right then, Perry ran straight for his dog house. Kiri just looked at him and sighed.
We have a long way to go on filling up a story with many more details, but she’s made leap and bound strides in adding interesting adjectives and keeping her thoughts organized. Once a child is able to start thinking in an organized way and knows why it’s important to add details that keep the reader interested, the stories begin to get longer almost automatically. The program we started using last year that helped build better, more interesting sentences is called Igniting Your Writing. I highly recommend it!
Posted by Cindy on
Look what I woke up to this morning!! Mahayla found an old time alarm clock in the basement that she wanted to try out. It woke her, or should I say EVERYBODY, up at 6:20 this morning. While Eli and I snoozed on, she put her Betty Crocker cookbook to good use and brought warm cinnamon struesel muffins with grape juice right to my bedside. Yummy!
Posted by Cindy on August 19, 2007
We took an impromptu history trip Saturday to Blue Licks State Park where they were having a reenactment of the Revolutionary War battle that took place there in 1782. Okay, so we missed the actual reenactment by seconds, much to my son’s dismay, but had a great time anyway.
During the actual battle, the English, Canadians, and Native Americans were fighting against the Americans. The Americans were sorely defeated with almost 70 being killed in about 15 minute’s time. Daniel Boone lost his son in this battle that is said to be the last battle of the Revolutionary War. Here are some pictures of various soldiers and encampments from the reenactment.
We also enjoyed a live bagpipe band and the kids each got to make a small pot at the potter’s wheel. Yes, even Eli!
The park has a nice buffet dinner sort of restaurant. Saturday, the main meat was buffalo. BUFFALO! Because of some, ahem, allergies, I chose not to partake of the buffalo. But, the veggies and desserts were great!
Posted by Cindy on August 16, 2007
Mahayla pretty much learned to read without my help. By 1st grade, she was reading chapter books. So I didn’t feel the need to back up and teach phonics rules when she was intrisically figuring it all out. We did use Spelling Workout for two and a half years which taught many spelling rules, but she hated the repitition of the same words day after day. By Friday, test day, she would easily make 100%, but wasn’t always transferring the spelling rules into other words.
Fast forward to this year. There are a few spelling mistakes that I have watched her make over and over again – even after talking about them. So, I decided daily spelling instruction needed to be put back on the curriculum schedule. I wanted to do something that really taught the rules this time. Something that would help her to use the rule to spell any word – not just the 20 or 30 for a test.
I decided to use Spelling Works from Scholastic. The lessons cover spelling rules using all kinds of words – there is no word list. Each day, Mahayla completes a lesson where she has to use the rule in a variety of ways. By Friday, test day, I give her 20 or 30 words that follow the rule. She may or may not have seen the words through the week, but if she learned the rule she should still be able to make 100%.
I’m after an understanding of spelling rather than memorizing a set list. I’ve already seen a big improvement in everyday spelling on the words that follow the rules we’ve covered so far. That puts a big smile on my face and has given her more confidence in her writing!
Posted by Cindy on August 15, 2007
My son loves baseball. He’s also excited about his new interest in learning to read. (Thank you, Lord!) So, we came up with a fun way to show his reading achievements – a “book”ball chart. Everytime he reads a book by himself, we’ll add a baseball to the field. We came up with the idea together, so he is very motivated to see the idea work!
Another mom from the Homeschool Open House (I wish I could remember who she was to give her credit!!) suggested a bookworm. You put a caterpillar head on the wall and add circles to the body for each book. You could do almost anything. A racetrack with car cutouts, a tree with apples, the moon with stars, a birdhouse with birds, a barn with animals or hay bales……..
The hands-on, active reading/spelling lessons are working wonders. I’ll be sure to write a post sharing the specific activities we’re using after I get some multi-sensory teaching “miles” on me!
