On that scary grammar subject...

I've had several questions recently about what we use to teach grammar. We don't use a formal grammar program at this point and I don't predict we ever will. We learn grammar and sentence structure through reading and writing. The more they read, the more natural it is for them to form sentences and use words correctly. This spills over into their writing as well.

Instead of having a two day lesson on, say, quotation marks, we instead point them out each time we notice them as we read. From early on we discuss when to use them and what they mean in passing conversation. This method seems to stick with them a lot better than if we sat down and had a one-time formal lesson on it.

I've found that if I will just let them write, they will present themselves with every grammar lesson in existence. Riley has been writing a story called "Meet Riley, American Girl." I let her type her little heart out with no suggestions or guidance from me. After she got all of her thoughts on the screen, I broke her story into small segments for us to edit together. We will be doing a couple of paragraphs a day, which I copy and paste into another document so it doesn't look so long and intimidating.

During this process we are naturally able to learn and review many aspects of language. She has a lot of dialogue in her story, so today we were able to review where to use quotation marks, and we learned how to use capitalization and punctuation with the quotation marks.

She had a couple of different tenses, so we discussed keeping our stories in one tense only. Same thing with writing in first person only if that is what you chose in the beginning.

Also today we learned about using commas when listing.

And we learned about when to spell out a number and when to use the numeral (I had to call David to be 100% sure on this one. You don't have to be a language arts master to be able to teach great writing, you just have to be able to find the answer).

All of these lessons presented themselves in just a couple of paragraphs of her own creative writing. And the kicker was when she later went on to work on another story, she was correctly using the new information she gained today. Score!

I do the same thing with my older kids, except more in depth. This technique may not be neatly packaged in a checklist form, but it stays with them. It works!

Samantha-American Girl History

For the past several weeks Riley and I have been learning about the early 1900s through the American Girl Samantha books. We are having so much fun with this. We have been reading about all of the progress in the "age of confidence," and how it was good for the wealthy people and bad for the poor (did you know kids as young as three years old worked 12 hour days in factories???). We are learning about Theodore Roosevelt, and about suffragists. About immigrants and Ellis Island. I love these books!

In addition to our reading, we've been doing some cooking and art from the early 1900s.

We made corn oysters.

And Apple Brown Betty.

We cut out Samantha paper dolls and acted out some scenes from the books with them.



In Happy Birthday Samantha we read about Samantha making her favorite ice cream, peppermint. So we crushed some peppermints and made ice cream in ziploc bags.

Hmmm...suddenly everyone is interested in American Girl History.

Silhouettes were a popular art during that time. We traced Riley's shadow and made one for her wall. I'm going to get one of those scrapbook frames to put it in.

We are learning so much through this and making some really fun memories, too!

Practicing spelling words

'Cause sometimes paper is just boring.

It's slightly reminiscent of potty training

Remember back in the day when you may have given your potty apprentice a little incentive for toilet use? Perhaps an M&M, or a jelly bean? Well I had an idea to revisit that today. Except for vocabulary words.

It seems like writing new vocabulary words and their definitions just isn't cutting it. They aren't sinking in for real-life purposes like I want them to. The whole point of learning new words is to use them, not to write them and forget them a week later. That's not learning.

So starting today, in an attempt to spark a little more effort in really learning, every time someone uses one of their vocabulary words in a real, relevant, pertaining-to-the-conversation sentence, they are going to get a chocolate kiss.

And maybe a real kiss too, if I'm really impressed.

Just thought I'd share. Can't hurt. Might help. I'll let you know.

Because chocolate matters,
Deleise

Mountains

We have been learning about mountains with our Planet Earth DVD. This week we wrapped up our research and papers with a trip with friends to the Wichita Mountains. We went to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. It was great! They have a museum there that we weren't even expecting, and we did a lot of exploring.

lunch on the lake.

We found a log beavers had chewed on.

Mountain exploration!

Checking out the museum.

Riley and Cole did the Five In A Row book "When I Was Young In the Mountains" by Cynthia Rylant to go along with our mountain study. In the book the little girl talks about hearing a bobwhite. At the museum they had a stuffed bobwhite and you could push a button and hear its call. Score!

The story takes place in the Appalachian Mountains, so we learned a lot about them. I got an idea from the Five In a Row message boards to make this cake, complete with tiny chocolate Appalachians. I don't think any of us will ever forget where the Appalachian Mountains are! We are moved by chocolate, we are.

We also made a mural of the mountains and animals that live there.

Good times!

Ahhhhhhhhh....

I love that Spring is here. I am patiently awaiting the green. We really enjoy doing some of our work outside when the weather is oh-so-perfect, like it has been lately.

Something about the peaceful breeze and the fresh air and the sound of birds makes the backyard a perfect learning environment. If you're needing to change things up a bit, head outside! It gives you a whole new perspective! We did our "independent work" outside today.

Money fun

One thing that still catches me off guard is how simple it is to teach when you are just working with one or two kids instead of a whole classroom. When it was time to teach Riley and Cole about adding money I approached it with a classroom setting method. Write the numbers, look at pictures of coins and add them together, blah, blah, blah.

Then it hit me. Hello? I want them to learn how to add money so they can, you know, add money. So we ditched the math book and dumped out a big stash of coins that David may or may not use for poker.

The difference in touching and sorting and adding real coins was no comparison to the workbook sheet we had started with. It made it real.

After playing with and adding the coins, we moved on a did the original worksheet. It was a breeze after the real life experience.

It's always better with the real thing!