Making a Zine {Artist Style}

Recently while traveling through my Twitter feed full of Project Based Homeschool moms I came across the recommendation or maybe just casual mention of the book Whatcha Mean What's a Zine? I checked to see if our library had it and reserved my copy. Like many books that are a huge success at our house, I simply bring them home and lay them out and watch the magic happen. Passersby will notice them conspicuously placed on the coffee table or I will point out that I picked out a book for a child and sure enough it's a hit.

Such was the case with this book and R12 has been making Zines regularly since. At first her Zine was daily, but she has settled nicely into an every other day publication. Before the first issue, she was dropping hints all day that her Zine was going to debut at dinner time. Since then we all look forward to seeing her latest creation at the dinner table.

Photo Credits: R12

Her Zine is called The Artist's Palette and features the same cover and sleeve- the little sleeve has the issue number on it and keeps the pages together.

She creates all sorts of art inside each issue either drawing, collaging, or mixing her media. Her attention to detail is impeccable and it's so fun to see what she will do with each issue.

At the time of this photo, she had 9 issues but has since published the tenth. The Groundhog Day issue is a special issue with double the pages. I need to ask R12 for some extra photos of this one. She did such a great job with the whole thing.

Tonight J7 asked her where the Zine was and she had to quickly think about whether or not today was a Zine day. It wasn't. But we eagerly await the release of the next issue.

Zines (think maga-ZINE) aren't just for art. You can put anything in a Zine and R12 has been trying to get her brothers into it- we're hoping it catches on a little, but for now we'll enjoy The Artist's Palette.

I love to watch as our children get older all the things they will pour themselves into. Feel free to drop a comment and tell us some of things your children enjoy!

Using Ordinary Notebook Paper Day 8: First Cousin to Notebook Paper

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: First Cousin of Notebook Paper- Primary Paper. I debated a bit on whether to include two closely related relatives to ordinary notebook paper because they may not be considered so ordinary. But, I simply could not leave them out! I'll feature one today and one tomorrow.

Primary paper is a MUST for younger students and my favorite of all time is the paper printed from Startwrite software. In fact, I love it so much it's one of the very few products for which I am an affiliate. It is so versatile and I use it everyday. It's the ordinary notebook paper I use with my second grader and I typically use it through third grade. Before you think your kids are too old for it, consider using it for cursive writing for your older kids.

Startwrite

I use the Startwrite primary paper in a variety of ways. Here are a few:

• Copywork- With the software I can type out any copywork I'd like. It can be traced on dotted line  letters or copied. I can type it out in solid type (of varying fonts) and have my student copy it on the following lines. In the picture above, I made a page of copywork from our current FIAR story- Pumpkin Runner.
• Plain half sheets of paper- I can make copywork or just plain paper in half sheet for so my students can draw pictures above it. This works splendidly with programs like Draw, Write, Now.
• Plain whole sheets of paper- As they get older and can write longer but still need bigger lines, this is very useful. 
• Notebooking Paper- You can do full or half sheets and add pictures or glue pictures or elements to the page and still have lined paper for younger students to write on. This is my chief complaint lapbooks. They usually do not account for the less refined fine motor skills of younger children.
• Narration- I love to make copywork from my students' narration to me. Simply type as they narrate to you and when you are finished you have a copywork sheet made from their own words.
• Notebooks/Assignment Books- I can use my ProClick to bind these papers into a spiral notebook for younger kids. I think I'll do a bonus Hopscotch Day this week to remind readers of how we do assignment books here. Of course it uses plain notebook paper!

There are many ways to use primary paper and in particular Startwrite paper in your homeschool. The software is a great investment and will give your young students an skill appropriate way to complete notebooking assignments without frustration. 

In fact, this is the only software I used for handwriting after my first child did a more formal program. You can choose letters that have arrows for letter formation and make nice instructional and practice sheets and I love that I can do that with my child's own words or the text from the things they are already studying.

Tomorrow I'll share another close cousin of notebook paper. Thanks for the grace on the delay of Day 8's post!

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 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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Using Ordinary Notebook Paper Day 5: The Dictionary Quest

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: The Dictionary Quest. For this one not only are we going old school on the notebook paper, but we are going old school on the dictionary as well. For this activity you'll need a good old fashioned print dictionary. The kind with those helpful guide words at the top of each page. The kind that you lose yourself in for a few minutes when you are flipping to and from the word you are looking up- as you see another word that catches your eye. Remember those? Remember when there was some browsing that went along with finding a word in the dictionary?

This idea came from an issue of Homeschool Enrichment Magazine- the July/August 2008 issue and the article was entitled, "Open Your Dictionary! The Educational Value of Your Most Common Reference Book" by Deanna Blackburn. She challenged her readers to see the dictionary as a useful resource "in the great toolbox of learning". She makes compelling arguments for old fashioned dictionary use even mentioning that online tools are sufficient for those of us who grew our base vocabularies prior to the online age. How about that?

Using the article I read as a model, I can choose any page and any word. This afternoon I opened up the dictionary and looked for a page with a picture and happened upon a camel. I chose the quest word to be "cameo". It's a great word with multiple meanings and the words that accompany it on the page are fun to explore. My kids have the chance to learn more about camels- they can tell me how many kinds there are, where they are from, and a few features which distinguish them from each other.

In keeping with our theme of action, all it takes is a dictionary at hand and a quick peek inside to pull out some words to explore.  Once you've chosen a word, you can ask for its meanings, have them list the guide words on the page, tell any alternative spellings for the word, and even identify illustrations found on the same page or nearby. You can find cross-referenced words and I love to send my kids on a chase with words found in a thesaurus to see if a word they have gotten from a thesaurus has the same meaning as the word they are replacing or if it is meant for another purpose. And no need for any special format! Just grab that piece of notebook paper, jot it down, and hand out the assignment!

The possibilities are endless, but it all comes down to getting kids to fall in love with words. I have a child who does not care for writing a whole lot, but she loves words and anything I assign to her with a challenge to use words, find words, or explore the subtleties of the different meanings of similar words...well she adores.

We often take for granted all the experience we've had with a print dictionary, but our children are not as inclined to make that choice with such handy electronic resources available. Just think of all the extra tidbits they miss out on when they don't flip through a thick book to find a word! When you need something for the next long trip, drop a dictionary- or two into the backseat and hold a treasure hunt!

One last thing, the dictionary you choose makes a difference. Having used this reference more than a few times already this year, I have seen huge blunders in definitions between two Webster's editions- one for "school" and the collegiate version. Make sure you have a good dictionary!

Stay tuned for some more word fun on notebook paper again next week...

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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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.

One Year Adventure Novel

For English this year E12 is doing the One Year Adventure Novel. He has been super excited to get started and kept asking all summer if we could just start already. We began this week and so far he loves it. If you click the link and watch the introductory video, E12 is the perfect kid for this program. He has lots of ideas, but begins to wash out part way through his story. The program is designed to develop the outline of your story for the first semester and in the second semester you construct your novel. At the end you can share your novel on the website.

The first task is to watch the video segment for the day, read from the text book called The Compass, and then do exercises from the workbook called The Map. At least so far...part way through we'll begin work on the novel rather than doing the workbook which is the outline of the novel. Each of The Map exercises requires a teacher evaluation based on a rubric. There are also weekly quizzes.

Some days we get to read excerpts from other adventure novels.

I am going through the process with E12 so we can evaluate each others work. Seeing the instruction and going through the process will help me to be a better sounding board for our new author.

This was an assignment on point of view- switching points of view is no good. Our novels will be in the first person.

So far we are enjoying it a lot. The program's author and instructor is interesting to watch and the video segments are pretty compelling. I'm excited to see how E12's novel shapes up with some direction. We hope to revisit the One Year Adventure Novel again in 10th or 11th grade to see how his writing matures.

Concrete Poems

This unit's pre-writing activity was to paint a scene from which the kids could choose an object about which to write their concrete poem. We had the option to take a field trip or go outside, but since I've got a cold and we had another fever this past week oh and the weather has been awful, a field trip did not sound fun. Instead, we looked out our windows and chose something to draw. Then we did some brainstorming to prepare for writing the sloppy copy today.

We began with watercolor pencils. E12 sketched our spruce tree out front.

R10 wanted to paint first, but E12 convinced her she could have more definition with the pencils first. This is a drawing of our two tiered flower garden in the backyard showing the few flowers which are blooming. Originally, the drawing was to be on paper plates which is novel and provides a natural frame. However, our plates were coated which was no good for watercolor! So, R10 made her own frame.

I8 chose the street light and utility boxes.

R10's finished drawing- always amazes me how an artsy person sees the world differently.

Some of our watercolor pencils- some are Prang brand. The watercolor paper I order from Discount School Supply.

The journaling activity on concrete poems- the kids used words from the word list to arrange around the tarantula.

Our other watercolor supplies. We really like the tube watercolors and the best tray sets are Prang brand. For Christmas we loaded the kids up on the double Prang trays from Staples.

R's drawing after adding the water. She is really pleased with it. She added the purple frame for fun.

J5 had his watercolor lesson for Peter Rabbit while the other kids worked on their paintings.

E12's journal entry and brainstorming wheel. His concrete poem is on football.

R10 chose to do her poem on the hyacinths in the flower garden. The exercise was to focus on something out of a larger scene- like the flower garden itself and then on just thing in particular so she chose the hyacinths.

So, after all that work yesterday, today we made a large "sloppy copy" of the poem after they drew a shape onto a 12x18 piece of construction paper. Then the kids did a self-edit of their poems. With a concrete poem, most of the editing was spelling. Usually, the pre-writing activity (in this case the painting) and the brainstorming are done on separate days. The sloppy copies are written on one day and the editing is done the next. However, we are playing some catch up this week so we doubled up. Tomorrow the kids will fix their sloppy copies and make a final published product.