Friday, December 21, 2012

Writing Ideas

Writing is always a great skill for everyone to continue to improve no matter what grade they are in. Here are ideas you might want to implement in your homeschool writing lessons.

  • Create a comic book or cartooning journal.
  • Write a shared story. You start the story off with the first two sentences and then have each of your children contribute a sentence or two until everyone agrees the story is complete.
  • Write letters to family members, especially the grandparents.
  • Write letters to soldiers.
  • Supply a daily writing prompt for your kids.
  • Have your kids write a “thankful” journal with daily entries.
  • Encourage your kids to keep a diary.
  • Show your children how to start their own blog. They will have to focus on writing if they want others to read their posts.
  • Find a newspaper article or magazine article that may be of interest to your children. Get them to write more about the characters of the article. What happened to them? What did they do afterwards?
  • Use headlines from the newspaper that you have cut apart. Lay out the different words to see what type of funny new headlines can be made. Let each child make a new headline and then write a short article for it. Funny or unusual stories are encouraged!

Friday, December 7, 2012

Beat the Winter Homeschool Blues

Don’t let winter keep your kids from having fun and learning. Here are some ideas for beating the winter homeschool blues.

  • Make a snowflake journal. Take the kids outside with a magnifying glass to examine snowflakes. Then, have the kids draw and cut snowflakes.
  • Make torn paper snow pictures. It is easy and mess free. Then, have the kids write about their picture.
  • Make a “snow” themed snack, maybe cookies covered with white icing.
  • Make shaving cream snow pictures.
  • Whip up some whipped snow.
  • Make snow ice cream--this was my favorite as a child.
  • Make snow angels and use food coloring to make snow pictures outside.
  • Make your own snow globe.
  • Make snow sculptures using different size buckets or pails.
  • Melt snow in a pan as you talk about different states of water.