Sometimes this is how it gets done. Love this little guy's free spirit.

Monthly Newsletter for Our Family

So, I mentioned in another post recently that I would like to post through the process of writing a monthly newsletter from our family.  I am not committing to doing this every month of the year-I like to set myself up to succeed as many times as possible!  We had a lot of "stuff" going on in February and I thought it might give us lots of good material to write about.  Also, once the articles are composed and illustrated, I may work on a little desktop publishing with the two older children just to test the waters and see how they take to it. 
You can click on the picture and see our list..there was a move we helped Grandparents make,  an anniversary, special Valentine's breakfast and more!

Today, I used our time to recall events from the past month.  Tons of stuff to write about here!  I gave them a little bit of time to chew on it and then choose the article they wanted to write about.  Then, we brainstormed the topics that they chose. 

I hesitate to state just how far we will get tomorrow because I make lots of plans, but the Lord sometimes has His own plans for our school days!  But, tentatively, barring intervention, I plan to help them get through a rough draft.  My 3rd grader will probably only be required to compose about two paragraphs.  My 5th grader can come closer to one page.  My 1st grader will dictate to me while I type his out and the preschooler--well, she's a whole 'nother story!!

I'll let ya know how it goes :)

Part Two: Hands On Grammar

I guess I should have mentioned in my previous post on this method that reverse operations serve a purpose as well. :) 

What I mean is, I have taken a  pattern of cards and given them to the children and they produce a sentence (can be silly ) that correponds to the part of speec on the code cards.  It helps them to create as much as identify.  They present it to the group and disputes are welcome.  This is how they learn--working it out, proving themselves, building confidence in their skills.  It works for me!

Hands On Grammar

I do realize that the picture would be misleading since the title refers to Hands On Grammar.  However, I have one child who struggles with grammar and needs any sort of different approach I can possibly conjure up.  I looked all around for something that I thought would be a sure-fire hit for her, at a reasonable price.  For me, that means almost free.  I had invested in various language programs through the years and have been reluctant to shell out much for something that I thought we likely might have already tried, in essence at least.   So, I decided to go it alone on this one.  I am still trudging through Easy Grammar this year.  It's going. Slowly. I felt the need to continue appealing to different senses with her on this and can see that all of my students benefit.  This is what I came up with.

As I mentioned in this post, I used sentences from literature that we had read aloud (or you could use something that the child is familiar with or reading through independantly).  We took a few simple sentences and (for the ten thousandth time) explained what a subject and predicate is.  Review never hurts and we go by the trickle-down effect for the younger ones since we basically have a one-room schoolhouse.  Using the very simple sentences that you see here, (and a few others before I erased them to write these) I had each child decipher the subject and predicate and just mentioned that we were going to have to divide these two parts because they are different and they do different things in the sentence.  That, in my opinion, is the beginning of sentence diagramming lessons.

(These are laminated pieces of regular white printer paper and I use dry erase markers on them with a clipboard)

Next, we "code" them.  This is done with our homemade code cards.  They take one word at a time and decide what part of speech it is and place the corresponding card in order, so that sentences look more like this:

This lesson is done as a group.  Anyone can (respectfully) dispute the answer that another gives.  The discussion facilitates learning AND teaching.  The ones who are sure of their answers inevitably teach the others the correct answer and even how they got it, and looove to prove it!!! 

If a child is unsure, they can reference the back of a card and find the definition and examples of what that shape represents and from there he can decide if he is choosing correctly. If a child, in coding his assigned sentence(s), runs into a word(s) that they are unsure of or have not yet learned, they can simply put a black card there and move on.  That word will be up for discussion when we all have completed their coding and we open it up for input.  Each child only had  two sentences to code on this day.   The solid black cards are KEY for them, in my opinion.  It keeps a struggling student from getting burned out and feeling stuck.   It's their "get out of jail free" card.  They are all laminated for durability.

 Got any other cool ideas for making Grammar more fun?  If so, please share :)

Introducing........Our Homeschool

We are a homeschooling family of six plus one very humanized chocolate lab. It is always crazy around here, unbearable once in a while, and on occasion, downright insane. But, we like it that way and hope you'll hang out with us and see what we get into along our journey.

We have one beautiful 4th grader who is very much Daddy's girl. Our Little Big Man is in 2nd grade. There's a new guy in our homeschool this year: it's our Little Guy. And then, there's Little Miss, the 3 yr. old and boss of the forementioned lab!

Grab a cuppa something, cause you're gonna need the sugar to keep up !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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