Homeschool Writing

I am SO excited about homeschooling this year! Not only are we continuing with Moving Beyond the Page (LA) and Life of Fred (math)...but we are starting a fabulous science program tomorrow called Supercharged Science....and now I just ordered a new writing curriculum that looks like it will be a blast, called---Cover Story:
"Create Your Own Magazine in One Year!
Cover Story writing curriculum takes middle school students on a guided tour through the universe of Story as they create content for their own magazine in one school year.

In this exciting curriculum from Daniel Schwabauer, the creator of the popular One Year Adventure Novel, students are led, step by step, on a fun, thought-provoking journey of exploration and creation.
Your student will write poems, short stories, non-fiction articles, letters, and many other short pieces. They also learn to notice and record their thoughts and ideas by following the creative structure of The Remarkable Journal of Professor Gunther Von Steuben.
A 12-lesson optional grammar component is included with purchase.
Cover Story also allows students the freedom of choosing a theme for their magazine, and a subject for each assignment. This approach gives the structure and guidance they need to understand the principles in each lesson, but allows them to create from passion rather than pressure.
This one-year program is appropriate for grade levels 6–9."
I plan on participating not only as their teacher, but as a student myself, and creating my own Magazine this year. I've had all these writing ideas, but so little opportunity to truly just sit and write..but now I found my opportunity!
If any of my homeschooling friends are interested in viewing or ordering "Cover Story," please consider ordering via the link below; will save you 10% through a homeschool buyers co-op; and give my family some "points" toward our next purchase. This is a fabulous website for learning about curricula options and saving some money.
link for Cover Story:
https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/cover-story/…
link for Supercharged Science:
https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/Supercharged-Science/…

keep it natural....keep it fun!

As part of our homeschool day, I asked the girls to write a 1-2 page short story....any topic, their choice. I'm a firm believer, since we have the luxury as homeschoolers, to let skills unfold as naturally as possible. Reading readiness, math readiness, writing readiness, etc.

The writer in mama is ready to help engage their creative writing muses, as they both seem more interested now, than they have been previously. Just like with reading, it is my intention for writing to always be a joy and a pleasure...and it is my hope that this creative process and outpouring will flow naturally for them.

We've done mini writing "exercises" here and there in the past...we started out a few years ago with the girls and I writing short stories together, and the girls illustrating the stories (you know how adorable children's art is!).

Over the last few years we focused more on the "mechanics" of the English language, in conjunction with literature-based teachings. It felt more natural to let the girls spend more time with pleasure reading (and they do spend a LOT of time reading for fun....mission accomplished!). Aside from the obvious, I intentionally used books (mostly of their choice), to be their English Teachers. I have a very vivid awareness of grammar and writing and spelling coming to me quite naturally, because of the magic of books; it was so easy for me, it sometimes felt like I was cheating in my English classes:)

Further, when my daughters do write creatively, I spend very little time correcting their grammar and punctuation because I do not want to disrupt the creative process! Like with math, when their numbers used to be written backwards, I chose to ignore that and focus on the content. And yes, it really did work itself out. I trust the same thing will happen with their writing. I do teach grammar, etc, but I will not correct their grammar in their stories. (Not yet anyway). I'm just thrilled that Katie is (finally) finding joy in writing stories, as it took awhile...she wasn't ready. I'm certain this had nothing to do with the stories not flowing, but more to do with the physical readiness of handwriting or keyboarding.

(Writing has come very naturally for Karina, and her English grammar and spelling skills are at a high school level...because she is an avid reader ...I majored in English and I can't tell you how many times I've been consulting her for spelling questions since she was nine:)

Anyway, my younger daughter created a mini book, with the intention of a short story series, as this will be continued. It's called "Think Before You Speak." There are almost no periods or paragraphs, but I have to tell you, the story is very imaginative, engaging, and well-written! It involves two sisters, the older eating ALL the food in the family, not sharing with the younger sister, who basically is melting away. And then, bam, younger sister wonders what life would be like without older sister, and instant manifestation...older sister vanishes in thin air....and because the parents don't have to spend so much Money on food now, the family is living large, In a mansion:)

(Hmmmm, stream of consciousness; sister themes;)

And the illustrations are so cute!

I'm looking forward to the next story in her new series:)

I'm sorry for the long post; I guess I just wrote my own little short story too 🤓

The End:)

The Little Red Hen

The girls took the short story, "The Little Red Hen" and together rewrote it into play form. They changed the format of the story so that little red hen displayed attributes which made her a more effective leader. They then selected stuffed animals to represent the main characters of their play and acted it out for me and Piper.

I confess....I do NOT give my children spelling "tests."

Period. 

 I personally despised spelling tests in my school days (even though I did well on them). I never understood the point, for the very reasons mentioned in this article. This is how my children are learning to spell...they read....and they read a LOT! And guess what books are comprised of? words...even "spelling" words. I would venture to say that my 10 year old is an extraordinarily strong speller....possibly even stronger than her mom (who is an English Major:), and I sincerely mean that. Spelling words correctly may not come quite as naturally for my 8 year old (yet), but guess what? She recognizes when something doesn't look right, and she asks questions or looks it up herself, to verify the spelling.

So, there you have it folks, I do not, and have no intentions of ever giving my children "spelling tests" (or vocabulary tests, and again, as my girls are reading or as we are conversing, or if they hear a word on tv, (you get my point, words are always available to learn and grow from in a very natural setting;), if they don't know the meaning of something....they ask...and then they remember, because it holds meaning for them).

Now, this may change as they get older, and we get into more science, etc....."scientific" words may not come quite as naturally.....but we'll certainly make it as natural and interesting and fun as possible!)

The End:) 

here's a homeschool article that triggered my post (in addition to a parent's recent post about how his son is struggling with spelling in school): 

http://theconversation.com/why-some-kids-cant-spell-and-why-spelling-tests-wont-help-20497

It's hard to believe that just two years ago....

my Little Angel was still reading and sounding out small, simple phonics books....like "CAT."

and just a few days ago, within about four months, she completed this entire series!  (and one book ("The Half Blood Prince"), she literally read in two days....it arrived late Tuesday night, and she was done by Thursday evening...and NOT reading all day long...because we weren't even home!   this girl LOVES to read :D...mission accomplished :D

 

Building a Short Story; understanding story elements

funny, how they both chose the dragon and the queen for characters :)

today, while I was making lunch...

my nine year old assisted my seven year old as she read her chapter book:

"First Halloween": (a short story written and illustrated by Fairy and Angel Girls)

It was the day before Halloween.  The girls were choosing their costumes.  Evelyn wants to be a princess.  Kate really wants to be a mermaid.  And Mary really wants to be a mermaid.  Eva doesn't know yet.

Evelyn: "how about a princess?"
Eva: "wow, that's a great idea!"
Evelyn: "do you like the idea?"
Eva: "yes, we will make it tomorrow.  But first, we will have lunch before we decide how to make the costume."

The girls break for lunch together, and eat peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches, lemonade, and grapes.

After lunch, they start talking about Eva's costume.


Evelyn: "what about your costume Eva?"
Eva: "well, I want it to be sparkly and pretty and shiny---And I'll leave it all up to Evelyn."


The girls start talking about their trick or treat bags.  Evelyn wants a ballerina bag.  Eva wants a ghost bag.  Kate and Mary are babies, too young for candy, so they don't need bags.  They will be home with a babysitter.


The girls are sleeping over at Eva's house.


Eva: "Let's go sleep in the bonus room, so we don't wake the babies."  


After a night of popcorn, pepsi's, and scary movies...before they knew it, it was morning!  They wake up and start work on their costumes.  Eva's mom calls them for breakfast: freaky fried eggs and scary pancakes and ghost bacon.


Back to the costumes.  The girls were able to put together beautiful costumes!

And then it was lunch time (of course): pumpkin fries and pumpkin punch.


Now it's time to make the haunted food for their Halloween party: Haunted gingerbread house; mummy dogs; spider cake; monster cupcakes.


Then, they put their costumes on, to prepare for TRICK OR TREATING!


Eva's mom says: "it's only 6:30, it's not time yet!"  
And the girls scream: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" (because they can't go yet, and clearly they are excited). 


So, the girls make up a trick or treat song and dance, til it's time to go...
when Evelyn's mom says: "7:00, time to go!"  The girls went to the first house:

TRICK OR TREAT!

The Sunflower Parable

Unit Study---Oceanography---Story Writing

activity: we are working with a unit study theme of oceanography---why?  we now live 15 miles from the Atlantic and because it was the free, immediately-available unit study that came with the unit study curriculum we purchased and for which we were waiting:)  This particular activity is about day four for this unit (each unit is designed to last about two weeks).  This one suggests, if you were to take a miracle pill to breathe and live underwater, write a poem describing what life would be like.  Well, of course this is right up our alley--but the girls have WAY too much to say (esp. when there is an opportunity to become mermaids:) to put it into a poetic format:)

LIFE UNDER THE OCEAN

The "miracle pill" to breathe under water is SEAWEED!!!  We go to fish school.  We read fish stories.  We do fish math!... (fish + fish = fish)...shark + shark = MAD SHARK....

We also go on field trips to explore shark places.  There, we would ride on a sea horse and have the best-time ever!!  (Fairy Girl) is now a mermaid named Cinderella: "I have a blue tail, a blue bra, and hair the color of the sky, and a pretty voice!  Oh and I found a blue necklace that said to me: 'I belonged to you all this time; I'm yours now!'  I'd be a mermaid forever with animal mermaids: mer-dogs, mer-cows, and mer-catterpillars!"

  We now head to the Sea of Adventureland, where we will be sure to meet dolphins and ride on them.  We would also ride on candy cane seahorses!!  Candy and Icecream are EVERYWHERE!!

 Candy canes started falling everywhere, but dolphin helped us to escape.  It also rains chocolate, in the Sea of Adventureland!

After we escaped the torrential candy cane downpours we met Ice-cream Octopus, Bubble Gum Ice Cream Sea Horses; Ice Cream inside of jelly beans; Sea Sponges made out of vanilla ice cream; sea stars made out of chocolate; sea horses' tentacles made out of jelly beans.

The Queen's crown was made of jelly beans and frosting and a candy tail!

Sea horses are made of lots of ice cream and frosting....mermaids lick them! (of course:)

We are mermaids!  Mermaid City Forever!!! 

(we will never leave;)

The Candy Mer-Tail End 

Birds And Butterflies Are Free to Fly Homeschool Academy: 2011-2012

A big welcome to my first and second grade students!!

"Bed in Winter" (our homeschool adaption of "Bed in Summer" by Robert Louis Stevenson)--a lesson in poetry, stanzas, rhythms, and opposites; complete with illustrations of OUR poem---sometimes, ok often times, poetry can go awry! 

In summer, I get up at day

And dress by pink and blue flowers in the bright

In winter, quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by night

I have to wakeup and see

The birds still singing on the tree

Or hear the children's feet

Still going by me with stinky feet

And does it not seem easy to you

When all the sky is cloudy and pink

And I should so much like to work

To have to wake up at night?

and to the right, an artistic interpretation of "stinky" feet, personified!

Poetry and stinky feet were just the beginning of our first day of this new school year!  This week we are studying Egypt, King Tut, and the impact and importance of the Nile River on Egypt.  To kick off our week in Egypt, we created  crowns for our little Pharaohs.

And just a final tidbit of what stood out in our first day back to school...I was dictating sentences for Angel Girl to write out (and words for Fairy Girl).  For the final sentence, I asked her to create her own.  If you choose to read through her dictated sentences, and see the last one she created, you will now understand why we *HAVE* to homeschool!

A Birthday Party

 

Once upon a time, someone knocked on a door and a little girl was invited to a birthday party.  Her name is Samantha; Kalela is having the party.  

 

   The much-anticipated birthday party time has arrived.  Samantha is excited to get ready.  Samantha put the invitation on the table and put her greatest clothes on (they were pink:)  Her mom said, "Samantha, you forgot something.....A BIG HUG!"......"Samantha, you forgot something else....your makeup."

 Samantha went to the party.  She rang the doorbell and everyone was at the party.  They ran out of drinks and Samantha had to drink water.  Samantha began to cry because she didn't get a sweet drink.  Kalela was turning 10, Samantha was still nine.  Then, they ran out of food and Samantha began to cry purple tears---she's down in the dumps:(

Kalela, the birthday girl, walked up to purple teary-eyed Samantha and said, "can you please leave?"  As Samantha was sadly walking out, Kalela blurted out, "Please don't leave!  Sorry---Sorry---Sorry!"

Samantha came back to the party.  But she cried again because the birthday girl wouldn't let her play with Fairy Princess doll, only with Prince Charming doll---she didn't want to be a boy.  She wasn't having fun:(

But, she was happy to receive a birthday hat!!  And she started to have more fun!!!  The kids started playing tag, and she chased the birthday girl, Kalela, who tripped and fell head first into the cake.  Then Samantha, running backwards,  tripped and fell butt first into the cake!!  Everybody was laughing.  

NOW Samanth was having fun!

THE END

A "Tail" of Two Mer-Kingdoms

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom of Mermaids.  Deep under the sea, not a sliver of daylight, they saw two sea castles and decided to live there:  The Castle of Flowers and The Castle of Light.

Princess Fairy Girl lives in The Castle of Flowers, along with her royal mer-court: a mer-baby, Mana, with blue hair, a green fin--she was born out of seaweed.; a mer-mommy named Gama; a mer-daddy named John; a mer-dog named Sara (she's gold with a blue fin and a blue tail); and of course Mer-Grandma and Mer-Grandpa!

Princess Angel Girl lives in The Castle of Light, along with her royal mer-court: A teen-mer, 16, named Celena, tall with red hair and a pink fin; a mer-friend named Ola; and a black mer-dog with a blue fin named Shroca; and a sea-daddy named Michael.

Both Castles were beautifully decorated with colorful furniture, sparkly and soft chandaliers, pillows, and of course, magical rugs!

The mer-people grew flowers everywhere in their kingdom (to keep the kingdom not stinkie, of course:)  The neighbors all love it and decided to move into this mer-kingdom!!

Celena, the mer-teen, is all grown up now, and about to be crowned queen and be married!  A glorious ceremony is planned!

But the BIGGEST bubble appeared and a voice called from it, "SHARK ATTACK, SHARK ATTACK!!!"  The worst-ever creature came to ruin the ceremony.  It scratched and tipped everything!!.  This was an invisible shark that sneaked up to ruin the ceremony and kingdom!  To make matters worse, a sea-girl-monster with sting rays appeared and used her flipper to pull Princess Celena over to the Bad Queen; the flipper pulled her up the latter and she was on top of the castle; and weird black sand filled the kingdom's backyard!

Everyone was so disappointed.  Sting Ray was so sad and mad.  "What happened to this wonderful ceremony?"  But then, Nice Whale brought the sword of light to save Princess Celena and the long-awaited ceremony.  And the mer-king, from his lookout, declared, "make the sharks and all the bad animals of the sea--DISAPPEAR!  And, by the power of the Flower Power Sword, make the sea-monster---NICE!"

The mer-kingdom had been saved!! Princess Celena had a beautiful ceremony, marrying the handsome Prince Triton, where they also were crowned King and Queen of the kingdom.  And of course, the mer-people lived happily, ever-after!





                            THE "TAIL" END!

 Note from the editor:


Our little homeschool is going to attempt to develop, build and write a story each week, complete with illustrations.  I will come up with a very simple theme, based on other things we may be studying.  For example, this week, I selected the theme of "water."  The girls will come up with the characters, the scenes, ideas and story development, and the illustrations.  Each week we will take four days to build our story.  The editor will attempt to take their mostly random ideas (at this point anyway); some based off stream of conciousness (for example, I had trouble fitting Little Red Riding Hood, who came up this week, into this particular story:)--and build some cohesiveness; yet at the same time, the editor will try VERY hard to keep the story theirs, by preserving most of their words; just adding a few here and there for embellishment.

  I'm sure you can see how valuable this "weekly exercise" can be; not to mention fun!  So, thank you for reading our first story.  We hope you'll come back for more!  (and my even bigger hope, that my girls are able to develop characters who aren't all mermaids:D

Reading--it's not all black and white!

Ok---so, my Little Angel (in my estimation) is doing very well with her reading lessons--she needs extra attention and encouragement---but it seems once she learns, she remembers--even if we don't touch it for days! I will admit, that, even though I majored in English, teaching them to read is my biggest fear---I'm a firm believer in letting kids learn and progress at their rate--but I have read about some homeschooling kids who's parents are so relaxed about it that they don't "get it" til even the ages of 9 and above (and I've also heard that the "Late bloomers often turn out to be extremely strong and avid readers). Now, there is the part of me who has many tradtionally schooled friends whose children have been "reading" since the age of three. I'm also hearing that the average school age to learn to read is no longer first grade (like when I was there) but is now kindergarten--so I admit--the peer pressure is getting to me. I can be very relaxed about letting my children learn at their rate---but it's very important to me that they do learn to read earlier than later (they already enjoy it, I'm not worried about that; I'm also honestly not worried about reading comprehension, another factor of reading, that I remember struggling with --it wasn't so much comprehension, but concentration in the school setting, like with the Iowa tests)--in fact, I'm almost certain they'll do very well with that. Little Angel has been sitting in her room every night before bed " reading" her books. She will go through the entire books (that we've read to her a few times) and reword it, reciting the entire story line in very rich detail--I LOVE that--such creativity!

Ok, so I'm a babbling English-writing major here--there is a point. I think Little Angel's doing pretty well with her reading lessons--I'm sort of combining phonics with whole language learning (giving her a word or two a day on a card). Somedays she gets the phonics thing, other days, it's "choppy"--and still other days, she's outright not interested in reading lessons. I can respect that--but if she's not interested, it means there's something wrong with my presentation. Ironically I tried to make the lessons very simple, black and white for her---but they were a little too black and white. I'm working with a book, and letting her read out of the book with me (my thinking of course was that she'd get used to seeing what words look like in a regular book sans pictures). Well, guess what! That's boring! So I cranked up my creative juicer and came up with my new approach: color--lots and lots of color--heck, I love color--of course my girls do! I present the words and sentences on a pretty piece of construction paper--and everytime she successfully works a word or sentence out, she gets to apply a sticker. The ones without the stickers need more work. Then, at the end of the "school" day, Angel gets to keep this paper for her "homework," where she can study and and concentrate on it anytime she wishes.

Now comes the castle chart! Everyday that she does a reading lesson, she gets to apply another sticker on the steps leading up to the castle (see picture above---I found a castle greeting card to use for this:) Every few steps, you will see the letter "B"--which for us stands for "book." When she reaches the step to "B" she will get to unwrap one of the gifts, as shown above--which contains a new book! Little Fairy's also getting in on the act---it's funny, I think she's paying no attention, but she'll stop and look at a letter, and be able to give me the phonetic sound for some of them:)

Yesterday, after we completed our reading lesson, Angel said, "mama, let's do math now!!!"

"Mermaid Adventures"--a story by Angel Girl--age 5

There is a mermaid who collects seashells. Her name is Aleena. She also collects starfish. Aleena collects seashell purses on the ground, with pearls on the handles. She lives in a house made of rock and decorates with starfish and seashells. She uses the pearl purses to pack stuff when she goes camping. She collects little pieces of wood to make little houses for the animals that live in the ocean. She makes lanterns.

Aleena swims to an island and crawls to get on it because she can't walk--because she has a fin. Aleena goes to sleep at night and collects things all day. She finds books. Aleena turns into a human from the sea witch. She sits in the water and puts her new legs up. She looks on her new legs and sees a foot and knows she can walk.

Aleena sits on a rock and waves goodbye to her mermaid friends.

THE END