Our Family Project

This week for our writing assignment, we did a "fun" assignment.  I printed out a worksheet from Teachers Pay Teachers.  Basically, we popped popcorn and talked about it while we snacked.  The children loved it! While the popcorn was popping we talked and how it sounded.  Was it loud, or soft?  Maybe it was sizzling?  The sound that everyone agreed on was "pop."  Hmm, go figure. After the popcorn was finished, I put it all in a bowl and set it in the middle of the table.  That's when the torture really began.  I told the children that they got to look at it.  No eating.  So, they looked.  And looked some more.  We wrote down words in the "Looks ..." column according to what they said it looked like.  This required some guidance.  I asked them questions like, "Does the popcorn look sharp, hard, all the same?"  The questions helped a lot. At this point, their stomachs were growling and they were beggin...

I've been working on some projects for school recently.  My friend introduced me to a website called Teachers Pay Teachers .  Basically, teachers post files of worksheets, posters, etc. for other teachers to use.  Some you'd have to buy, but there are a ton for free.   I've been wanting posters for the parts of speech to put on the wall for my children to look when they forget what a pronoun is, or a preposition, etc.  So, I got on that website and did some looking around.  I found several different files that were what I wanted, but nothing had everything I wanted.  Make sense?  I wanted my posters to all look the same: font, color scheme, format.  But, I couldn't find one file with all the parts of speech I wanted ... some had all but one or two, others had only four (because I am cheap and just want to get the free ones). My answer was to just make my own!  I spent some time making the posters, then decided to make a booklet ...

My children have opportunities to take a break during our school day.  Today, Kate took a break and decided to use the activity that I'd pulled out to accompany Andrew's spelling lesson. For his lesson, I ask him to write the letter associated with the sounds I say (so when the letter is "a", I ask him to write the letter that says "a, ay, and ah").  Then he writes the letter with his forefinger in rice on the cookie sheet. I'd actually pulled out three cookie sheets and filled them with some rice and gave one to Andrew, Adam, and Maryanne.  The younger two needed something to do while I was helping Andrew with his lesson.  When they were finished, Kate took over and started to draw in the rice.  I love how something so simple can be so creative. 

When Jon and I went to the Homeschool Convention in July, I attended a workshop entitled "Smart Kids Who Hate to Write."  It was quite an informative class.  I learned the following: Left brain = Thinking Right brain = Doing When an activity transfers from the left brain (thinking) to the right brain (doing), you no longer have to expend energy thinking about what you are doing.  (Example: driving.  When you first learn you are constantly thinking about how far to press down on the pedals, checking your mirrors, paying attention to your speed, staying between the lines, etc.  After you pass your course and get your license, you can drive and think about other things, not how you are driving.) For children who hate to write, the activity of writing hasn't fully moved over to the right brain.  So they expend more energy on writing because they have to think about how to form each letter much more than those who have had the act of writing move over to...