Our Journey Westward » Writing

Poetry at the Coffeehouse

Cindy — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:04:17 +0000

I recently reviewed some curriculum from Moving Beyond the Page that included a Poetry unit. Mahayla worked through the self-directed curriculum on her own and then completed a final project of sharing some of her own poetry in a coffeehouse setting. Here are a few pictures from the “coffeehouse”.

This is some of the poetry she shared.

Nothing like dressing up for you big performance! (Insert rolling eyes.) The poster in the back was a display teaching the audience (her family) about poetry forms and the tv is on because it was playing soft music.

Yummy banana bread. Every coffeehouse poetry reading needs food!

This week and next, the kids are working on presidential projects. I’ll share them with you soon!

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Published Books

Cindy — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:01:00 +0000

This week was our second round of book publishing this year. Back in February, after the kids had written an original story from a picture prompt, we took the story through the writing process. We’re still trying to find a binding method that works for us – these books were comb-bound using a machine at church.

Mahayla’s is titled The Mountain Trail and is about a horse riding incident. She submitted this story to the Girlhood Home Companion and we think it’s going to be published!

Caleb’s is called Josh the Ice Skater and teaches us all a lesson about skating on a not-so-frozen pond.

This week, I asked each of them to choose a children’s book with predictable patterns. They had to study the pattern and write their own version of the story using the same pattern.

Mahayla chose Fortunately by Remy Charlip and Caleb Chose Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews. We sewed the inner pages of the books then used Gorilla glue for the covers. We won’t use Gorilla glue again!

Publishing certainly isn’t for every story, but it’s valuable experience at least a couple times a year. I’m considering asking the local preschool if we can come read these to the children. I think that, too, would be good experience for my children!

Field Trip Journals

Cindy — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:17:00 +0000

Remember the Field Trip Journals? We’re still using them this year and I couldn’t be happier with them. They are proving to make great writing assignments, and I’m finding the kids absolutely love looking through them for the memories. I love to watch the kids sort through brochures, ticket stubs and pictures trying to decide what to include and how to organize the memories. They’re going to make wonderful keepsakes!

The Westward Gazette – Medievel Edition

Cindy — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:35:00 +0000

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December Newsletters

Cindy — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:54:00 +0000

Here’s the latest edition of the Westward Gazette.

The Latest Newsletter

Cindy — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:47:00 +0000

We’re having such a good time creating our monthly, er, every six-eight week newsletter! Here’s the latest installment…..

Yes, as you can see we do trick-or-treat. I know it’s a controversial topic among Christians, but I hope it won’t become controversial here. Our children enjoy dressing up and eating candy. That’s all. No more, no less. :)

Our First Newsletter

Our Field Trip Notebooks

Cindy — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:29:00 +0000

After coming back from Michigan with 100 pictures, several brochures and tons of memories, I racked my brain for a practical way to put it all together. Then I remembered Sheri’s blog and the notebooks she uses with her Five In A Row studies. Perfect!

I found the 10×10″ spiral notebooks in the scrapbooking section at Walmart. The covers are plain and colored, so they will decorate nicely when we get around to it. Inside, there are 50 card stock, archival quality pages just the perfect size for a memories journal.

I copied several pictures from the trip in wallet size. Then, gave the kiddos the pictures, some brochures, scissors and glue sticks, and let them have at it. The only thing I asked was that they write some of their memories on each page. How’s that for a secret writing lesson?

They loved this “assignment”! We all agreed that we should try to do a page or two for each of the field trips we take this year. What a great keepsake these will make!

A 60th Birthday Party

Cindy — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 23:20:00 +0000

My Daddy is turning 60. Twenty-four years ago on my Mom’s 30th birthday, my Dad surprised her with a party full of friends and family. It took her quite a long time to repay the favor, but she successfully pulled off a surprise birthday party for him this year!

We had such a good time! Sorry, there are no pictures from the party. My digital camera decided to stop working on this important night! There are plenty of pictures on my Mom’s camera, though!

My sister put together a Power Point presentation of all sorts of pictures my Mom dug up from the past 60 years of my Dad’s life. She put it to ”oldies” music. It turned out beautifully!

My Dad doesn’t need a thing materially, so I struggled for quite some time with what to give him for such a momentous birthday. My friend, Jody, told me of an idea she did for her dad that turned out to be a hit, so I grabbed the idea and ran. I wrote my Dad a letter with 60 memories I have of him. I printed it on pretty scrapbook paper and put it in a leather scrapbook journal. It’s a gift I hope he’ll treasure for years to come!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!

Our First Newsletter

Cindy — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 21:16:00 +0000

We are SO pleased with the first edition of the Westward Gazette! I bought a $20 software program from WalMart called Perfect Pro Office that made our computer work simple. (Word Perfect is the only office-type program that came on my computer and it stinks for projects.)

The newsletter includes a story or journal entry from each child that they wrote in August, a Bible verse we’ve been memorizing, an August weather wrap-up, a brief review of our unit study and some fun experiments we did, plus a book review written by Mahayla. (I’ll admit that I did most of the typing this time around. We were getting used to the new software and I was trying to teach them how to add clipart and pictures, so I didn’t want to overwhelm them with the typing. Next month, they’ll take over more of the work.)

We’ve all decided that a monthly newsletter is a fun idea. I hope all the relatives who get bombarded with them think it’s a good idea, too!

More Writing Ideas

More Writing Ideas

Cindy — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:47:00 +0000

If writing isn’t a natural passion for your child, it can be a subject full of drudgery. Believe me, I know. Up until this year Mahayla has fought me tooth and nail over any sort of writing assignment. This year has been different, though. I believe she’s enjoying writing partly because of maturity, but I’ve made a real effort to make writing more exciting this year, too. I’ve already mentioned the writing prompts, so I thought I’d pass along some of the other ideas that are working.

JOURNAL WRITING

Jill Novak has written a wonderful book called The Gift of Family Writing. In the book, she encourages the use of journals for each member of the family to write down life’s stories as they happen. I blog, that’s what I consider my journal. For Mahayla, I’ve made journal writing fairly structured for now. Once a week she has gets to write in her journal. I usually give her the assignment on Monday since so many memory-type stories come out of the weekend fun. She is actually LOVING this journal writing thing! And what wonderful memories she’ll have of her childhood as we save the journals over the years. I can even see her learning to enjoy this so much that she begins to write out journal entries when they aren’t assigned.

As for Caleb, we are just beginning his journal. It’s an assigned time each week, too. As Jill suggests, for now, his journal is strictly narrated to me as I write what he says. Jill believes getting the stories out is more important than the drudgery of actually writing for younger ones. Telling their stories and then reading their stories back to them will develop much more in depth, real writing than if a child were struggling to physically write it themselves.

BLOGGING

Early in 2007, I let Mahayla start a blog. She made entries here and there, but was never consistent. In my goal planning for her year, I knew I wanted her to write more, get typing practice, and learn more about the computer. So…..giving her a weekly blog writing assignment became part of the curriculum. Again, this has been a “hit”! She’s allowed to write about anything she wants – even copying a recipe from a cookbook counts – so the assignment ends up being fun. It especially helps that other little girls comment on her entries. Doesn’t everybody prefer a real audience for their writing?

NEWSLETTERS

I also have plans for taking one week each month and spending the language arts time doing a Family Newsletter. There won’t be any spelling, grammar, copywork, or other writing assignments the whole week. That time will be spent writing, editing and publishing a newsletter using a computer template. At the end of the week, the kids will mail off the Westward Gazette (or whatever they decide to call it) to family members. Our first newsletter won’t go to press for another week, but the kids are already excited about it. I’ll let you know how it goes.