We created our own mail center in our schoolroom and play room because my kids love getting the mail. They love to send letters to friends, teachers, and grandparents. They love to send and receive mail. I made some monster post cards to help us practice writing, addressing, and sending mail. Of course, these aren’t post cards for the US Postal Service: they are for our own homemade mail box!
A few weeks ago, I overheard my kindergartner talking to his baby sister.
“Are you an i, u, v, or j?” he was saying in his sweetest voice. “Because if you are, you cannot come at the end of an English word!”
This he repeated a few times over the next few minutes as he played with her toys, talked to her, and otherwise engaged in his own world of play with his sister, who was just delighted that he was nearby.
Apparently, my son internalized one of the most recent spelling rules we learned far more than I had realized. We had reviewed the rule a few mornings before this event. The manual had suggested repeating the rule in a “silly” voice and then again in another voice. I thought that was ridiculous, but I did that with my son anyway. And then, days later, he was repeating the rule to his sister without even realizing he was rehearsing his English lesson.
My experiences and my son’s experiences with the Logic of English Foundations program have been truly fun.
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I’ve been creating units for kindergarten using picture books to introduce the poetic concepts of rhythm, rhyme, and metaphor. Today I thought I’d write about another picture book that would help in teaching older children about metaphors in poetry: Red Sings from Treetops by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski.
Holiday “crackers” are getting more and more popular in the USA, so we had fun with holiday compound words by putting the broken “crackers” together during our hands-on Language Art lesson.
Since my daughter likes ducks so much, I decided to do some mini-units on ducks. One thing I decided to do was prepare a small craft and writing (“craftivity”) for us to enjoy! Continue reading
My son is strong reader, so I’ve decided to institute a “strong reading” project each week to make sure he practices those skills he’s developed.
You see, although my son is reading at a 4th grade level, he is still gravitating toward lower reading level books.
For example, he’s still rereading The Magic Tree House books; Judy Moody and Stink; Ready, Freddy!; The Pee Wee Scouts, and so forth. There are worse books (I really don’t like My Weird School and Junie B. Jones, for example). But the ones he chooses still provide somewhat stilted dialog, immature and rude comments, and formulaic plots.
I get it. Raisin, despite his high reading level, is six years old. He likes the books! They are very easy to read and also full of fun. I want him to enjoy reading, and certainly don’t want to discourage the stay-up-late-and-read-under-the-covers habits that he’s begun. (Ok, well, I wish he’d go to sleep, but isn’t it a great thing?!)
So the question is: How can I drive my son toward books that have strong language, better complexity, and challenging language that will help him develop a stronger vocabulary?
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This week’s Mentor Monday (a link up feature at The Reading Tutor/OG blog) is about using text to help teach figurative language. I realize I am a day late this week, but I am very excited about this topic and have a few perfect books to highlight similes and metaphors.
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Since November is NaNoWriMo, I figured that this was the perfect time of year to talk about how my writing class is going at my weekly homeschool co-op. Continue reading
I don’t really have a week in review for you today. I feel like if I don’t have anything nice to say I should not say anything at all. It was not a bad week, but I’ve been frustrated by Paul’s lack of focus this week. We’re trying a few new things to make our day go smoother. Maybe I’ll have more positive things to share next week in the wrap-up.
I read a book with my son a few months ago about a girl who likes words and wrote her favorite words in a journal. I thought it would be fun for my son to have his own word journal!
Students could use the word journal for writing down favorite words as the girl in the book did, and it also would work well for tracking tricky spelling words.