Five Words That Describe Summer

Here at Blog, She Wrote we are still getting back into the groove of our learning routine. Preparing a house to sell and moving a homeschooling family of six to a new home takes a lot of energy! We had 27 book boxes from our former school space alone- and many more from other corners of the house. It turns out that it takes a lot of time to settle back down in a new home as well and aside from a few stray boxes in our new learning space, pictures on the walls, and the office/studio not being rebuilt and unpacked, we are about finished. Finally!

So, our attention has turned to our fall schedule and turning four children who have enjoyed much academic freedom over the last three months back around to focus on their education. We haven't turned on a dime, but we are moving steadily in that direction!

Yesterday, I used my handy smartphone to grab an idea from In Our Write Minds. I have Kim's blog bookmarked in my phone's browser and I knew I'd seen some writing prompt ideas. 12 Back-to-School Writing Prompts was just the thing to have my three younger kids work on some writing in the afternoon.

I gave them each a different assignment (sometimes modifying it) and it went beautifully. R12 had to choose five words that described her summer and tell why. I told her she could use the thesaurus to play with her words and she gladly accepted the challenge. She found words like "felicity" and said she had a pleasurable summer. And "interregnum" because summer is a vacation from school and because that was such a cool word.

I10 had to tell about something he'd done over the summer that he'd never done before. He chose to tell about building the lean to that he's working on in the backyard. This was after mulling over "moving" and he decided although that was fantastic, it wasn't fun enough.

J7 had to pick just three words that described his summer and write them down. He also had to draw a picture to match his choices. Moving made his list along with "scary" and "hot". Scary points to his recent experience with yellow jackets on his face. Standing still as he'd been told, he let them get a little too close. Thankfully, he did not get stung, but he is sufficiently freaked out. He now knows there is a limit to standing still! His picture is a stick J with his tongue sticking out (denoting how hot he is), with a yellow jacket near his face all the while standing next to a UHaul box.

Simple exercises that can turn into a great assignments. That's one of the best things about homeschooling.