Using Ordinary Notebook Paper Day 7: Dictation & Grammar

 Welcome to iHN's Hopscotch at Blog, She Wrote! My topic for the 10 day series is Ten Ways to Use Ordinary Notebook Paper. Thank you for joining me. Please take a moment to subscribe, so you don't miss out- you can follow, subscribe by email or RSS feed (just look to the right!) and follow Blog, She Wrote on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. I'd love it if you'd stay connected and visit again!
 

Today's notebook paper topic is: Dictation. Many of you may be familiar with using dictation with students to improve their writing skills. Using copywork and then dictation for language arts is a natural extension of our literature unit studies. Using well written books is a great way to introduce children to grammar and the next best tool for the job is your well stocked pile of notebook paper!

I choose a few sentences or more typically a paragraph from a book we are reading and I read it aloud to my student. His job is to write down the sentence as he hears it and then I add a grammar exercise to it on the second day.

It may take some time for your student to catch on to listening and writing. I don't mind repeating myself as we build this skill, but eventually I will not repeat the sentence and once we've finished, I edit the paragraph. The following day I add some grammar questions to call out some skills.

I choose the paragraph based on what my student needs work on- I can always find a great example of the use of a comma or possessive nouns when I need one.

Once we go over the grammar questions and activities, I have the student rewrite the paragraph with any corrections. It's a nice way to tidy up the lesson.

If you'd like to know what resources I use as a reference tool for grammar, please see the list in this post called Thoughts on Grammar. 

Thanks for joining me!

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Please visit the other bloggers participating in iHN's Hopscotch over the next two weeks. While you are taking a look at the other Hopscotchers, check out the Pin It to Win It giveaways sponsored by Prufrock Press.
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Using Ordinary Notebook Paper Day 6: Writing with Word Cards

Welcome to iHN's Hopscotch at Blog, She Wrote! My topic for the 10 day series is Ten Ways to Use Ordinary Notebook Paper. Thank you for joining me. Please take a moment to subscribe, so you don't miss out- you can follow, subscribe by email or RSS feed (just look to the right!) and follow Blog, She Wrote on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. I'd love it if you'd stay connected and visit again!
 

Today's notebook paper topic is: Writing with Word Cards. This is a little tidbit I've shared before within another blog post and I thought it would be worth mentioning again all on its own. I started using this with my then younger reluctant writer daughter and it still works today with her and with her younger brothers.


You can use this technique with creative or more technical writing- with a curriculum focus or free writing/something you put together as a writing prompt. In this example, we used Story Starters by Karen Andreola as our inspiration for writing. Actually, Karen provides a lot of writing helps already within her text, but this using word cards is just one more tool in my writing toolbox for my kids. When they are younger I like it for picking out key items they need to include in their writing. As they get older I still like them to help my kids focus on word variety.

The downside is that a set of word cards may sort of lead your kids down one path vs another depending on the words you provide. In this example, I added the word storm to the list though none occurs in the prompt- so it's definitely a leading sort of word.

How does it work? I provide the cards in a library pocket based on the prompt. The cards have words on them that must occur somewhere in the student's story ending. You can have a student look at all the cards and begin writing or you can have them choose a card one by one (from inside the pocket) and add a sentence to their story using that word- this works pretty well for reluctant writers.



Of course all the self-editing and editing parts of the process remain the same, but the word cards give some more framework for the written response. It also adds a kinesthetic approach to writing if only in a small way. 


Again, this is a quick and thorough way to enter the writing process for a student and provides another way to coach your student on his writing. You can even make the word cards from notebook paper, but in this case I used index cards. Notebook paper is a flexible tool to use with word cards. I usually have my 5th grader skip lines and write on every other line- another way to modify the use of wide ruled paper with younger students. Skipping lines allows their writing to be spread out more and provides more room for editing.


I hope you enjoyed this quick writing idea using word cards and notebook paper. Join me tomorrow for another great way to use ordinary notebook paper in your homeschool!


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Please visit the other bloggers participating in iHN's Hopscotch over the next two weeks. While you are taking a look at the other Hopscotchers, check out the Pin It to Win It giveaways sponsored by Prufrock Press.
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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.

Household News & Unschooling Moments

We have been at our new home for almost a week now! It was a week ago today that we took possession of the home at about 2pm in the afternoon. We cleaned that day and last Saturday we made the big move. I should probably tell that story which involves many, many people from our church turning out in force to clean or load the truck or unload the truck and even delivering lunch to our tired helpers! It was a day the Body of Christ was in its prime form and we are truly grateful to everyone including my inlaws who kept everyone fed and happy otherwise and filled in with errands and anything else we needed.

Needless to say, not everything is unpacked. Standing in our way most significantly is the final carpet cleaning on the main floor. The previous owners had a cat (and a dog) and we have major cat/dog allergies in our family. So, a good cleaning is the order of the day and it's always good to freshen things up, right? We have one more room and some soft furniture they left for us- which is such a blessing. Think fun reading corners!

The kitchen is just about done although it's so huge compared to my last one that I'll be moving things around for sure as I get more used to things. Here's a shout out to the three ladies from our church who unpacked most of our kitchen and cleaned out and organized the pantry on move in day!

All that to say, I've been cooking all week and we've had "normal" dinner times. Last night after dinner, R12 presented Dan with the Family Times (renamed to protect the innocent). Dan read it aloud to us all and we had a great laugh!

She did a nice job formatting into columns by hand.

R12's newspapers offer color graphics as well.

Some highlights for you:

House Progress
Cleaning of the floors has now begun in the downstairs. The upstairs has already been cleaned.

More Money
I10 wants money! He is trying to earn money by doing extra jobs. He expects money to come pouring in around mid-August.

And my personal favorite:

Person Needed!
Someone is needed to vacuum the basement!

We've been using the Shop Vac in our basement to do some "spring cleaning" and it's a big space! So, it's slow going as it is handed out to the kids when they are bored. Although, as of last night, it's been sectioned off and a more methodical process has begun.

You can't beat the unschooling moment of a Family Newspaper! She has other features like Entertainment, Book Reviews, Photo Contests, and Explorer Information- which is a section showing a map of the trails they've explored behind our house and a section offering tours.

Investing in Moments that Matter

I don't know about all of you, but the weather in upstate NY this March has been amazing. I'm considering that March came in like a lion due to rain and thunder on the 29th that led to snow the next day. So, I'm expecting it to leave like a lamb for sure, but to think the entire middle of the month could be a lamb too? What a gift!

Needless to say, we are all hit with spring fever....about two months early. R11 had some of her dolls out yesterday for a photo shoot in the yard. She had asked me if it was ok to do some blogging about their adventures if she could do the post as her writing assignment for the day. Given that I'm trying to get R11 to make friends with her blog, of course I said yes. Besides, who can resist dolls out for an afternoon?

Inspired by this doll blog, we tried a new hair do on Felicity.

She also changed from her wool riding outfit to her spring pinner apron dress.

Tools for the trade...according to the book, orthodontic rubber bands are just right. I9 to the rescue! He was more than happy to donate his.

A while ago R11 received the doll hair kit as a gift.

After writing her blog post, she let me help her edit it. You can see the final result in the photo shoot link above.

Well uh...sure I can try that one. Who needs the DVD when you can read the manual?

Samantha is in progress here...face mask rubber bands working excellently...

The finished pony tail veil...did I miss my calling or WHAT?

Addy's hair needed some attention so I carefully combed it and re-did her big braid. It's pretty close...

I can't tell you how delighted R11 was that I spent time with her yesterday and today playing dolls and helping her fix a few up-dos. I'm pretty excited she did some cute doll blogging with some writing. What a therapeutic time for both of us investing in our relationship and it was cool that her brothers got to help out here and there. Some seasons at our house are busier than others, but I am thankful for the time we have to savor small moments.

WriteShop Junior E- Beta Testing

Many of you know, we do not use a formal writing program with our children. I have always done copywork and dictation with our unit studies and coached my kids on a lot of the writing process through lots of different types of writing over the years. We have been very consistent with it and it has worked very well.

In the fall, I listened to an mp3 of Kim Kautzer at WriteShop and began reading her blog, In Our Write Minds. I found a lot of great tips there and began using some of her suggestions. I looked at WriteShop and thought if I were to write a curriculum for writing, it would look a lot like this. So, when she put out the call through a newsletter that she was looking for folks to beta test a 5th grade program, I jumped at the chance to try it out. We've been using WriteShop Junior Level E since February. It's been a great time! I use it with my three oldest kids though it is designed for 5th grade. I think it's right on target and I'm very happy to report that the coaching I've been doing all these years has paid off! Even my 3rd grader using a 5th grade program is doing very well without missing a beat.

This week is a concrete poem- so the kids got to choose a shape.

And paste the words in their shape to make a poem.

We do a modeling of the assignment together. This is our poem on The Sword.

Each lesson topic lasts two weeks and is very predictable in terms of the order of the activities. My hands on girl loves the variety and she has been producing a lot of great writing. I already mentioned that I love the editing process. It has given me more concrete ideas for improving their self-editing skills which has made a difference.

I am more convinced than ever that a formal program of writing and grammar has not been necessary! I'm not sure what's in store after this semester. I will likely return to coaching and daily writing with our younger boys. E12 will definitely be using the One Year Adventure Novel next year in 8th grade (with a return to it in 10th or 11th grade). I'm not certain what R10 will do for 6th grade next year. I do own WriteShop I and we will likely give that a go. One thing I love about WriteShop is that it breaks down the writing process without leaving behind the authenticity. It is very easy to relate the types of writing we learn to very familiar books that we have experienced together. It has been a great experience to work with Kim and her WriteShop materials. I'm sure you will hear more about our process before we finish up in June. We are about half way through this beta program at the moment.

Editing

We've been trying out some new strategies for self-editing using some tips from WriteShop. I LOVE Kim's suggestions! I can't tell you what a difference it's made in our successful student editing. Just a simple thing like reviewing their work looking for the things they did right first has been incredible. R10, who is notorious for various grammar infractions, actually looks forward to this process and she's making progress in finding her own mistakes. This is HUGE!

The kids use highlighters and stickers now to mark what they've done well before we even begin to look for the items that need correcting. We just keep this can handy during school hours. They love the can.

A spelling dictionary I picked up at a Scholastic Warehouse Sale years ago. It comes in handy actually. For Christmas, we bought R10 her own Franklin Children's Dictionary and Speller. I was afraid she wouldn't be able to spell well enough to use it, but she does! And this little tool makes editing pretty cool stuff.

A pocket thesaurus which is great for beginners, but pretty lame over all and good ol' Roget's that I used in college. It doesn't even hold a candle to The Synonym Finder (below).

The best thesaurus EVER. Trust me. You need this book.

We are having a great time writing this semester. We have a few things cooking, but I've been spending a lot of time at In Our Write Minds. I am most excited to report though, that despite the fact that I do not use formal writing/grammar programs, my kids are doing very well with their writing. Which really just reaffirms my choice to continue with the goal of helping my kids to become good written communicators through lots of writing and coaching.

Homonyms...or is it Homophone?

I8 was working with some homonyms the other day. That name might be old school, but I'm sticking with it. I used the matching game from Homeschool Share to print out these cards. The pizzas give the kids a clue as to how many words they need to look for.

After the break (we are taking two weeks of from school- though I'll still be catching up on my blogging during this time), we will try out some things from the All About Homophones book I received from All About Spelling.

In my mind, not mastering the homophones at some level, is a spelling deal-breaker. So, we do these with some regularity around here in our grammar work.

NaNoWriMo for Kids Update:

 

So, we are off! The kids are all of to a great start. See what you think:

My Adventures with the  

Girl Who Saved the

World, (by R10) a Summary:

This is a story about a girl whose name was Alyssa and how she traveled with the girl who saved the world from a natural disaster all the while averting people who wanted to stop them.

Ben's Secret, (by E12) a Summary:

A family moves out to California to mine for gold during The Gold Rush. They join up with a mining village on the bank of a river near a mine. The village works together to mine for gold so they can all get rich. When bad buys come to steal the gold and kill the villagers only little Ben can save the day! Will Ben get help from another village? Or will the barbarians catch him first? Find out in this fast paced, exciting adventure novel!

The Desert Sands, (by I8) a Summary:

In the sands of the desert, two brave heroes find a cave and when they enter, all around them are criminals with pistols and they want a map. A map to the exploder- a device that will kill them all.

The Sewing Journal

When I saw this in the store is spoke to me. It said, "Sewing Journal".

R10 thought it was a terrific idea and she started right away. This is the cover page.

The first entry is that skirt that's on Kit a few posts below.

The next two are longer which is fabulous! One is a pair of headphone cozies she made for Dan (the foam covering the ear pieces is coming off) and the other is her sewing basket. 

I'm still having trouble formatting  my posts with the new Blogger posting interface. Sorry about the weirdness. I'm not sure I have time in my life to figure it out all at once so bear with me. Once such quandary is how can I add text to the area before the pictures begin once the pictures are loaded.

So, the sewing journal was a gift to have thought of and I'm so glad I did! R10 is all about recording the things she has made and adding new things. For example, the sewing basket she made really was an idea for the journal that she made after she wrote about it. She also is very excited to share this book with others so we are editing as needed. So far, this has been a great tool to get R excited about writing. She even asked if could only do one per day or if she could do more!

At first, she wanted to be sure more of her details could be in the drawings rather than in the writing. However, she loved the idea and was willing to give it a try. Now she eagerly grabs it to write down the next entry. She's also excited to put prints of her real work in it. I know you'll be hearing more about R10's Sewing Journal. I'm delighted to have found something to do with writing that is inspiring to her! (besides poetry)

Is there something  your child is passionate about that would make a good journaling experience? We are still doing the Year of the Dollhouse journaling which is give and take, but this is something R can record on her own and just think of the keepsake it will be when she is older!

Talking Duplos!

So, I stumbled upon this idea while viewing a Tumblr...from Filth Wizardry. I fell in love. And I instantly knew what I could do with our Duplos. J5 can use them to form three letter words, etc and my next two oldest can use them to form sentences. R10 had a great time putting together a sentence that she copied into her grammar book and adjusted the punctuation. The first one she made was a nonsense sentence. So, then I had her make another sentence, with the same words, that conveyed a conventional notion! I think the idea will go a long way with reluctant writers. I used the Peggy Kaye books below to come up with my word list. By the way, if you've never seen Games for Writing or the other Peggy Kaye books, head to your library now and prepare to be inspired!

letters on labels for J5

label stickers to the rescue!

Both of these books by Peggy Kaye came in handy in choosing the words I wanted to use.

The formerly non-chatty box of Duplos

Wordy Duplos

Writing Ideas and Progress

Just some random writing assignments to share here with you all...

I7 (our resident leftie) gets to choose from the Draw Write Now volumes and use one selection per day. So, he does his artwork and then writes the four sentences. I really like this for the consistency and he likes making choices.

Each day R9 writes something. Lately it's been using cards I give her with words on them and she has to write a sentence with each word. She likes to lay them all out and form a theme then she puts them back into the pocket and chooses one at a time. She's also been doing some letter writing- mostly thank you notes.

Once R9 has done her assignment, I edit it and we talk about the changes. And there will be some. You can see on this day we went over some homonyms (where, wear, ware) and she had to look up ware. She uses the dictionary for correcting the misspellings and writes a final draft. Sometimes I look for the final draft on the same day and sometimes I do not.

We work in the wide-ruled loose leaf with R9 now. She will do several drafts and then she copies it over onto a separate loose leaf. I'm planning on putting those final drafts together into a portfolio of some kind.

Now that R9 isn't using handwriting paper, she appears to be a tiny writer. I didn't see that coming at all. You can see I like to use the space given to me.

Writing Games

So, we've been enjoying the book Games for Writing by Peggy Kaye. What a great book for teaching writing in a casual manner! I kept my library copy so long I decided it was time to get my own.

Friday we played the game called How Many Words? In this game, you have a big chart of words and after you modify a die to have a 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4 roll, you roll the die to see how many words from the chart you have to fit into one sentence. If you use the number words from the row that you are supposed to, then you get that many points. The person with the most points at the end wins.

We played all together with 2nd grade, 4th grade, and even 6th grade participating. R9 came up with some really cute stuff. I'll share her work below. She decided to string the sentences together to be a story and she gave me permission to share her work with all of you.

The kitten purred in a cute way. One horrible purplish monster went swiftly to bed.

"It is delightful to be magical," said the puppy.

The bad grasshopper replied, "You are not magical. If you were you would make me magical too."

"You are sleepy. Go wake monster and use his bed," said the puppy.

The bad grasshopper went to the monster's bed and said, "Wake up," softly.

"You will be tasty when I chew you in my teeth," said monster.

The bad grasshopper raced away. The monster raced after him. Finally, the bad grasshopper fell into the smelly, dirty water.

This is just one of the many games that Peggy Kaye has put together in her book, Games for Writing. I recommend this book to anyone who has a reluctant writer (she has lots of ideas for this) or to anyone who wants to see more fruitful writing from their students.

If you visit Peggy Kaye's Website, she has some games on there to download for free. I sure hope she gets more going on there too because it would be fun to be able to share with each other how we use her stuff. After visiting there I have to say that Ms. Peggy is not a visual learner! There's not one graphic or picture on her home page. That makes me chuckle. I'm visual. Can you tell? I can't post anything without at least one picture.

Ms. Kaye's other books Games for Reading, Games for Math, and Games for Learning are also favorites of mine. These are must haves for your homeschooling shelf if you don't already have them. I borrowed mine from the library so many times, it was time to invest in my own set.

Some Thoughts on Writing (an update on the Great Depression project-as promised)

Have you ever noticed how different each of your children can be in talent, personality, likes and dislikes? I think it is amazing to watch the differences (and similarities) in our children. Homeschooling is cool because you can really capitalize on what your children are good at to help enhance any weak areas you see. Take R8 for example. She loves to talk! I have NO idea where she gets this from though I do recall getting a bus referral in the first grade for talking too loudly and numerous comments to this effect on report cards throughout my school career and somehow it wasn't spun in such a positive light as she loves to talk!

She loves to do creative writing. You can find R8 writing silly stories and eloquent poems all the time. However, this lovely young girl really hates to write facts of any kind. Give her the assignment to research and write about it and well it just isn't going to turn out like you'd expect.

Research isn't the issue. When she did her oral report and salt dough map on Hawaii, it was superb. She read as much as she could find about the island and proceeded to give an outstanding oral presentation about it. She was able to field questions and tell us all that we wanted to know with confidence. I also noted that she barely wrote out any of it. Seriously.

Getting her to sit and write down all the things she has read and committed to memory is near impossible sometimes it seems. Yet clearly it is something she needs to work on. It is a skill she needs to tackle.

That's when I began to think back on a book I've been reading all summer. The Charlotte Mason Companion is a thoughtful review and handbook on the writings of Victorian era educator Charlotte Mason. This book comes highly recommended by many in the homeschool community and I am a voracious reader of information (not so much of fiction...) and I find it to be a rather tough read. But I keep at it (mostly at the myriad of drs appts I've had over the last four months) and was delighted to recall some chapters on oral narration from children. Charlotte believed that reading aloud to children and having them read on their own and narrate the contents of a chapter or so to the teacher was a very valuable tool for both student and teacher.


That's when it hit me. R8 is an excellent narrator for information she hears or reads. Why not take it a step further and allow her to improve her writing using this method. I had R8 narrate to me all the facts she'd learned about The Great Depression and I wrote them down. She dictated to me what she wanted and I wrote down all those facts. To take it one step further, she will copy what I have written (which is nothing more than her own words to me). After doing this for some time, I hope it will begin to draw out her own talent to write what she has in her head. Until then, we can use her own words to improve spelling and build her confidence. Charlotte Mason believed it worked. Let's see if she's right!

There's barely any room left on this paper. It's full of facts about The Depression that she narrated to me after doing her research.

Somehow R8 was going to use this library pocket poster for her display about The Depression. In the end, she chose the poster format and just yesterday she dictated to me many facts about Louis Braille (the other topic she chose to work on for her last Helen Keller assignment). Today she will finish writing down each fact on to index cards to put in the pockets. Again, doing copywork from her own oral narration to me.

Writing Time!

I decided to try out Lynn's new idea and use five vocabulary words from Arabella for R8 to use in her writing yesterday. Wow! What a success! You can see below she got to choose words randomly from a pile and then write a sentence at a time. I'm really pleased with the way she put it all together. It's a fine little story. The best part is that her writing has improved even since last year! We did a spelling placement test yesterday and discovered that she is ready for level B- no way! R8 is pleased. She is a better speller than she thought.

In case you can't make it out, I'll type it out here for you. Her word list was: wharf, white cap, jumble, drift, and hoist. She was very excited and this is what she came up with.

The wave had a white cap and it was so tall you could hardly see the top. The sailors were in a big jumble and that could not be fixed. The captain said, "Hoist the sails!", but the sailors were in too much of a big mess to listen. Then they saw the wharf and they screamed and shouted. When they got out of the boat, it started to drift away.