Summer Writing for Teens and Tweens - Comic Fill-in-the-Blanks

To keep tweens and teens on their creative writing toes this summer, try challenging them with a set of fill-in-the-blank comic strips.

I copied some for my children off of Yahoo's comic page to my computer (if you were planning this for a group setting, you would need to get copy write permission).  Then I combined them onto a single sheet in "Paint", and used the eraser to blot out the original captions, so the children could fill in their own words to go with the pictures.

I had planned on saving it for later today, but my older girls (ages 14 and 16) discovered, and filled theirs in, during a late night kitchen raid, last night already.

They got quite a kick out of seeing how their dialogue differed from each others, but still managed to fit with the pictures.

I crammed quite a few comic strips onto one page - fewer strips per page would make for larger word bubbles, and might be easier for slightly younger children to fill in.

It might also be fun to leave the words, and erase the pictures, for the artistically inclined.

Or, for children blocked by empty word bubbles, you might start off with a matching exercise, by cutting out a set of word bubbles for each blank comic strip, so they could mix-and-match the original words with the pictures.

Valentine Pun and Idiom Challenge

I called the children to the table today, and presented them with a brainstorming challenge.  I told them they were the marketing department for the Cheesy Cheap Toy Company.  For some strange reason sales for the company have been down.  With Valentine's Day approaching the company execs were asking for the marketing department to come up with a campaign to boost sales by attaching their toys to Valentine cards.

They had a sample of Cheesy Cheap Toy's offerings (a sack full of quarter machine toys from the grocery store), and a copy of Riveting Valentine Jokes for Kids (accessed for free through our KindleUnlimeted account) for inspiration (any Valentine pun or joke book would do).

They worked together brainstorming Valentines for their finds.  Admittedly, their ideas were not all that original...

...but for an off the cuff effort, they did pretty well...

...especially considering not all of the toys were easy to identify.

And, if nothing else, it gave us a chance to talk about puns and idiomatic phrases, while honing creative writing skills, and knocking of a few Valentines for family and friends, at the same time.

Approaching the Dreaded Five Paragraph Essay with Ease

I receive questions from time to time about how I handle the subject of writing, especially for the older children. I have to admit I don't often post about our writing exercises, mainly because they are pretty much the boring, day to day type of exercises, and activities you might find anywhere.  Whenever possible, as with all our subjects, I try to let learning happen naturally.

The children write letters, fill in Mad Libs and Sunday School papers, write journal entries, create comic strips, and fictional stories.One of D's friends from another state, for instance, recently sent him the beginning of a story to add to, and send back, as a collaborative writing project.  I love that sort thing.

Whenever I come across something the children have written, from notes to lists to signs for their doors - such as, "No boys allowed!" I correct any obvious grammatical, or spelling errors, and leave the corrected papers in place for the children to find, and ponder at their leisure.   Add to this a good deal of individual and family reading, along with a number of video and computer games, that require typed in instructions, or dialogue, like Animal Crossing or Scribblenauts, and an occasional Grammar Made Easy type text book for those days when I'm suffering through a flare up of  UPD (Unschooling Panic Disorder), and you pretty much have our approach to writing, at least for the younger children.

With my oldest now officially in high school, and starting to look toward a GED, or some kind of high school equivalency diploma, SATs, ACTs, college applications, and entrance exams, and then the world of higher education ahead, we've started looking for ways to develop and hone his essay writing skills, starting out with the dreaded, five paragraph essay.  Actually, I never dreaded essay writing, or least if I ever did, I received enough practice at it during my high school years to make it feel like second nature by the time I reached college.  That is what I would like for my children - not necessarily to love writing five paragraph essays, but to be familiar enough with them, so as not to be afraid, when confronted with one during a test situation.

And, that is why I am very happy to have found Steck-Vaughn's GED Essay workbook.  T (age 14) and I have been working through it for the last week, or so, and while I can't say he's loving the process, he is learning, and I'm quite impressed with the organization of the book.  It walks the student through writing typical test type essays with the easy to remember acronym POWER - Plan, Organize, Write, Evaluate, and Revise.  There is a chapter dedicated to each section of the acronym, followed up with chapters for improving, and refining the process, and covering typical grammar and spelling mistakes to be avoided. I'm looking forward to the grammar refresher course, myself :)

As a whole, the workbook takes things slowly, and offers a number of practice exercises, moving from simple brainstorming, right into creating essays, through a series of simple, easy to grasp, steps.  Nothing is overwhelming, or intimidating.  It's just step, step, step - to a no stress essay.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Tangrams and Cinquains for Children

Our jump back into "school" for the new year is off to an odd, but I'd have to say typical, almost unschooled beginning. I read The Warlord's Puzzle to the children at breakfast.


It's the first of a math themed series, set in ancient China, by Virginia Walton Pilegard.







Each of the engaging stories has a short Chinese history lesson at the back, as well as a suggestion for an easy to make, math themed, craftivity, and there are additional study guides for many of the books on the publisher's website.

As you might imagine there is a pattern for a tangram puzzle at the back of the book we read today. Since the story is about a contest to try to put a broken tile back together into its original square shape, I thought it might be fun to cut a puzzle out for each of the children to monkey with at lunch, to see who could be the first to form the square.


The children are familiar with tangrams, but usually we use them to make various shapes, and pictures. It's not too often, that we remake the original square. A (age 10) solved the problem by flipping to the back of the book, and looking at the pattern there.

I told her that was cheating, and then happily played the audio version of Barbara Park's Junie B., First Grader: Cheater Pants...


...which I had downloaded from our library's online catalogue last night, after reading the suggestion from publisher's study guide for The Warlord's Puzzle to introduce children to cinquains (5 line poems, pronounced sing-cane, as a combination of the French words cinq, for five, and quatrain, for four lined poem, made popular by American poet Adelaide Crapsey in early 1900s as a nod to the haiku), which somehow reminded the author of the love of nature shown by Chinese poets in their writing.

It just so happens that Junie B., First Grader: Cheater Pants, in addition to addressing and defining the problem of cheating, also has a very clearly spelled out lesson on cinquains for children.

1st line: One word (title)
2nd line: Two words that describe the title
3rd line: Three action words about the title
4th line: Four words that express a thought or feeling about the title
5th line: One word that means the same thing as the title.

Which, is how we ended up spending our morning, and part of the afternoon working Chinese puzzles while creating silly little American, French named, Japanese inspired poems.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Language Arts - An Eight Planet, Solar System, Mnemonic

While we really like the "My Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" mnemonic, for remembering the order of the planets in the solar system, we don't care as much for the "My Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nothing", that we have left since losing Pluto to dwarf planet standing. The Nothing, makes us miss the Nine Pizzas, and missing the Pizzas makes us miss Pluto as a planet.

We decided what we need is a new mnemonic, altogether. Unfortunately, once you have a mnemonic stuck in your head, it can be difficult to come up with anything else. So, I gave the younger children a project this morning, to jump start our creative thinking, and to practice their cutting, letter, and reading skills to boot.

They cut out eight circles, I had traced for them on scrap paper...


...and printed the first letter of each planet in order, with some help, on the circles.


Then, they sorted through a couple of old magazines, and catalogs, looking for, and cutting out, words that started with those letters...



...placing them on their proper circles...


...for us all to use in an attempt at coming with a new, and improved, eight planet, mnemonic.


So far, we haven't come up with anything good.


In fact, after several attempts, we decided we needed more J words, and more verbs. So, it was back to the magazines.


I have a feeling, by the time we actually come up with anything we like, we'll have the order of the planets memorized well enough, not to need the mnemonic anymore, anyway. Maybe then, we can start working on a mnemonic to help us remember how to spell mnemonic.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Cater-spelling, An Egg Carton Game

Despite the fact, that snow showers are still in our weekly, weather forecast, the seasons are changing.

Leaves are budding, birds are singing, and the insects are returning to our yard. I have mixed emotions about that last one, but the children were quite thrilled to find their first caterpillar of the season.

Again, I had mixed feelings. Did you know not all caterpillars are really caterpillars? The larvae of other insects, like sawflies, crane flies, and beetles can also look a lot like a caterpillar. Ours did seem to be an actual caterpillar though (more on that for Science Sunday), so we celebrated with a spelling lesson.

I know, I know, a spelling lesson doesn't sound like much of a celebration, but this was cater-spelling - a craft, a game, and a lot of fun.

I cut the bottoms off of a couple of empty egg cartons.

The younger girls painted them green, purple, and yellow.

When they dried, we turned the green ones into heads, like normal for an egg carton caterpillar (Michelle, over at A Mommy's Adventures made a cute one with her girls this week, to go along with Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar).

Then, I painted letters on top of the purples (two sets of vowels), and yellows (only one set of consonants, because I ran out of empty egg cartons)...

...so that after a bit more drying time, we could practice our alphabet...

...and simple spelling skills.

Best of all, the pieces can be stacked, to turn one word into another.

Of course, once we empty another egg carton, or two, to add another few sets of letters, we'll be able to spell larger words, and the older children can join in for a full fledged, family game.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Cereal Box Spelling Game

I've been working on ways to help the children pay better attention to the spelling of words they see all around them everyday, but don't necessarily think about how to spell - like the words on their cereal boxes.

So, this morning, when they got up for breakfast, I had a spelling game ready for them, cut from some empty boxes.

After I cut the words off of the boxes (and a few fun pictures)...


...I cut them apart...


...and marked them on the back, with numbers and symbols, so they could be easily sorted out, later.


I had them in order, as words, for the children to see when they came up for breakfast.


Then, after they had looked at them, I scrambled the individual words up, for them to unscramble...


...using not only the letters, but also the clues in the size, and colors of the letters, and how they fit together, or how they are use to seeing them on the boxes.



Once, they are completely comfortable with the spelling of the words, we can scramble all the letters, and make the old words, and some new ones.


My plan is to leave the letters, and pictures on the table, so they can play, and explore words with them, throughout the day. Then gradually change, and add new words, as more boxes are emptied.

For more writing related games, and ideas, check out this week's Writer's World link up at Giggles and Crayons.



It's great to be a homeschooler.

Mad Libs - Grammar With A Grin

Don't you just love Mad Libs?

• Parts of speech
• Vocabulary
  
• Spelling
  
• Verb tenses
• Creative writing
  
• and, if you're under the age of 12...

...complete, and total hilarity.

Have you checked out the Mad Libs, lately? They have all kinds of new themes. The favorites in our house right now are Star Wars, Clone Wars, and Indiana Jones. And, when the books are full, they just beg for a make-your-own follow-up.

Every grammar lesson should be so much fun.



For more ideas on making writing an educational, but enjoyable experience for your children, check out this week's Writer's World link-up at Giggles and Crayons.

It's great to be a homeschooler.