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Category Archives: Book Reports & Narration
IEW Reading List
You can get this at their website but they give permission to share it if complete. IEW Reading List
Writing Prompts
(Snagged from various places online, for various age ranges and please suggest more!)
A Trip to the Moon
Over the Rainbow
If Animals Could Talk
If Kids Made the Rules
Through a Dog’s Eyes
Conversation with a Fairy
The Day the Monkeys Got Out
Traveling Through Time
The Big Storm
The World’s Worst…
The Gift
All About Me
My Family
My Pet
My Favorite Toy
The Job I’d Most Like to Have
My Favorite Person
The Coolest Thing About Me
Someday I hope to…
My Biggest Fear
My Greatest Accomplishment
My Favorite Place to Be
My Hero
I’m a Superhero!
Favorite Famous Person
Become a Character in a Book (Film)
Favorite Summer Activity
Favorite Winter Activity
My Dad as a Kid
My Mom as a Kid
Scariest Thing that Ever Happened to Me
My Family: grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, parents
My Favorite Subject in School
My Best Dream
My Best Daydream
How I Can Help My Town
If I Had $100
If I had One Million Dollars
Once When I Did Something Brave
Cooking for My Family (real or pretend)
My Restaurant
There’s a Dinosaur in my Back Yard (insert any animal)
What Would I Pack for a Trip to (The Moon, China, the North Pole, etc.)
My Favorite Vacation
My Dream Vacation
If you could talk on the phone to anyone in the world, who would you call?
If you could write a letter to anyone in the world (and in history) what would you write?
Review the last game you played.
Annoying things
baby-sitters/baby-sitting
Being invisible
Being lost
Biography
Childhood toy
Countries/travel brochure
Dreams
No electricity
Fireworks
Fun the car
Disabilities
Helping people
Historic people
Success
Inventions
Kitchen
Magic Wand
Camping
New Year’s resolutions
News
Occupations
Our School
Perfect Student
Pets
Restaurants
Self Introduction
Slumber Party
Space travel
Special treasures
The Year ________
Three wishes
Time machine
True Stories
Fantasy
Visitors
Winter Sports
Summer Fun
Zoo/aquarium
Writing with Ease
Okay, book arrived today and there’s a bit at the beginning explaining her approach to teaching children writing, what she thinks should be introduced at what points, etc. Very classical in its approach, of course.
They are working on the middle school level book and there’s a high school level one to come, this is the elementary years (1st through 4th.) They also have written the First Language Lessons for years 1 through 4, same author, and those are grammar, narration, dictation, copy work, memorization.
I am finding it interesting and I like a lot of what she says, but this book is mostly an outline for how to cover the first four years of writing – the catch being that she believes in the first years students should be getting comfortable with seeing the written language and learning to write it literally. The actual pen to paper writing process, hearing proper speech and being able to write it down, etc. She thinks no creative writing or original work should be attempted (assigned, that is) until kids have the foundation down of being able to hear something and summarize it orally (narration) and see something and copy it exactly (copywork), hear something and write it down without seeing it (dictation) and hear something and be able to recall it orally (memorization.)
Those are the exact same things taught in First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind. The only difference being this provides the outline of work with increasingly long passages to narrate, copy, take by dictation, etc. Actually I don’t think this one even includes memory work.
Basically if using First Language Lessons you could accomplish the same thing by just making sure every day the child was practicing one of those areas – narration, copywork, dictation. Increase them in length and difficulty over time to ensure they are practicing proper grammar, punctation, capitalization, etc. She believes that’s the only necessary writing work a child should do in the first four years, though in the grammar book (FLL) she does include exercises like addressing envelopes, writing a thank you note, sending a business letter, etc. And she encourages you to have the children narrate stories from others and then dictate a couple sentences they can record and then play back to write down. Of course we should be reading a ton to the kids (or having them read) from the classics as well but she proposes no creative writing (at least not assigned writing) or essays or research papers until after fourth grade.
I’m trying to decide what I think of this? I’m very curious to see what her middle school book looks like and I don’t regret buying this – it is just $17 and includes a good outline to help me stay on track for writing exercises with the kids to supplement FLL. But there seems to be a lot of overlap as well…
Even more curious now to watch the DVDs for Excellence in Writing to see what that approach is. The author of Writing with Ease endorses the Excellence in Writing program for middle and high school age, even as she works to create her own program for those levels.
The author does say if kids want to spend time doing creative writing then by all means, encourage it – but don’t assign it as school work or they may get frustrated by the restrictions and grading and it will stifle their desire to creatively express themselves. Teach them the rules of proper grammar and writing and let them have fun with it as they want, then as they get older begin to assign essays. Outlines and drafts are introduced in middle school, one page essays and longer research papers in high school. She said 3 to 5 one page papers per week in high school and a couple lengthier papers per semester.
I do see the value in formally teaching writing – kids need to learn how to outline ideas, to summarize key points and skim and determine what is crucial and to present a well formed argument. I’m sold on that point. I think we’ll do the placement tests and I’m guessing C will start at the beginning of the 4th year and Mo will probably start with the first year to make sure she’s got that done, but we’ll skim through that and get to the second year.
We also plan to be better about having the kids narrate (literature, science & history lessons) and we’ll let them record their narration then write down a sentence or two from their own narration for dictation. We really want to encourage their creative writing, even if it’s not a formal lesson yet. We’re writing penpals, doing thank you notes, and giving them the Bare Books and other writing materials so they can have fun exploring. Sometimes we’ll still do things like writing our own poetry after reading poems.
I like that the book says if kids are struggling with the motor skills for writing then have them practice just enough each day to get those muscles working but to not discourage them. Even one sentence a day, and I’m having Mo and C do that with their scripture mastery & songs they do for memory work. I write it out at the start of the week (in cursive) and they copy a bit each day throughout the week (in theory – when I remind the. 🙂 )
I want to see if I can encourage more story telling from them, and we can record those stories on video or audio. I know that the handwriting/typing comes later and I want to encourage the creativity – I’m just trying to figure out the best way to do that. Excited to see the other program, too.
Constant refining process, learning to teach. 🙂
Update: After watching the IEW DVDs and purchasing that syllabus I decided to return the Writing with Ease as it’s duplicate work for First Language Lessons and I like the IEW program better. Thankfully I had the book only a couple weeks and it’s in new condition so I was able to set up an Amazon return.
Writing Programs
Now that C is nine and has cursive down and is improving on his typing we wanted to begin a formal writing program. We’re looking at two options – The Excellence in Writing program and The Complete Writer Writing with Ease. The latter is from The Well Trained Mind author and she also endorses the first program though she’s currently working on a middle school level set of her own that would be competition for it.
So Writing with Ease is for 1st through 4th grade and the book I ordered (and linked to above, though I got it from Amazon for $17) and it’s the instructor text. They offer student workbooks but reviews say they’re really not necessary. We use that same author’s grammar program First Language Lessons which we like, but that’s grammar, dictation & narration. We wanted something for more structured writing (essays, poetry, creative writing, etc.) And for $17 for a four year program we can’t beat that!
The Institute for Excellence in Writing program is also a teacher’s guide, it’s a DVD set and teacher syllabus (the teacher binder is $33, the DVD set is $169 but can be borrowed so long as you buy your own syllabus. A local friend is loaning it to me to watch.) In theory it teaches you how to use their writing program for all ages and you can purchase more DVDs that actually teach the lessons or you can create your own lessons (which I plan to do.)
I want to see both options so we can determine which works best for our kids. I was hesitant about buying both but it’s $50 for me to get the teacher guide for both programs together and that way I can decide from kid to kid which I think would be best for their learning style. (I was able to get both for $31 combined thanks to a used copy & a sale.)
So we’re doing First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind for grammar, narration, dictation & some memorization.
Spell to Write & Read for spelling, though it does include some writing exercises & some grammar lessons as enrichment.
Cursive First for handwriting, which they practice with their spelling words, dictation work, and soon their writing program.
Teaching the Classics/Thomas Jefferson Education questions for literature.
Institute for Excellence in Writing and/or Writing with Ease for their writing. We’re waiting for both of those to arrive.
My tentative plan is that we’ll do two writing lessons a week and one grammar lesson for C, since his grammar is much more intensive now (First Language Lessons Level 4.) For Mo we’ll do her two grammar lessons (Level 2) and one to two writing lessons a week, depending on how involved they are. Then all together we do one literature reading and they both do spelling lists & enrichment activities with those. That sounds like a lot but it actually doesn’t take up that much time or coordination.
M: grammar, new memorization
T: new spelling words, writing lesson
W: grammar, spelling enrichment
Th: writing lesson, literature
F: spelling test
And all of them incorporate the cursive/handwriting.
(Update, I’m returning Writing with Ease because I think it’s redundant if you do First Language Lessons and because I think the IEW writing program is better and covers all ages, not just 1st through 4th.)
Amazing Grace
I’m working through our reading list and of all the the stack we just picked up from the library this was the only one I would want to own:
Amazing Grace about a little girl that doesn’t let anyone tell her she can’t be Peter Pan. 🙂 It handles the issues very gently but directly when her classmates say she cannot be the star of the play because she’s a girl and she is black, very good for discussing with kids but it’s a beautifully done story that sends a message all on its own.
BENNETT’S FIRST BOOK REPORT!
Guess who just read his first kids’ novel??
I asked him about the main characters and plot and he listed five dinosaurs from the book. That confirmed to me that he did, indeed, read the whole thing. He finished it so quickly that we were stunned!
Fall Adaptations
– Christopher was saying he hates math and that makes me sad because I knew I was leaving him to his own devices with lessons. We talked about it and realized he is having a hard time with the more intensive work, it’s a lot more at this stage (Saxon 54) and the problems are far more intricate. He’s such an extrovert, too, and he does best if he can talk through things so we tried something new. We read through the lesson together and he does the new practice problems aloud with me and then we alternate him doing the written work alone or doing it orally with me. After a week of letting him do the oral math version he said he just may love math now. 🙂 What a simple solution… and it allows me to immediately correct any errors and see how he’s working through the problems.
– I’m reading aloud the history to the kids (Story of the World) and the Lamb’s Shakespeare for kids once a week each. It’s forcing me to pay much closer attention to the story and characters as we have to review what we read the week prior. I’m learning a lot even if the kids are not!
– Christopher’s grammar is becoming far more intensive (and boring) as well so I’m making sure he has the concept down and can do a couple of the exercises and we call it good. It’s a lot of sentence diagramming right now and I’m bored personally with reviewing predicate adjectives vs. predicate nominative. Bleh.
– Both kids are working on the BBC typing lessons and Ben’s asking if he can, too. I realized they could probably pick that up pretty quickly and since I’m happy with their cursive skills I’m comfortable with them learning typing now. I know it won’t be do the detriment of their handwriting, which is quite nice if not a bit slow still. They are still so young, I know their little hands still tire quickly while writing and I don’t want that to slow down the spilling of their creative ideas. I’m also willing to have them dictate stories and reports to me and I’ll type or write it up for them – until they are 10 I don’t expect they will have the handwriting speed or typing skills to quickly capture their own ideas without it frustrating them and I don’t ever want that to stifle them expressing creativity. I’ll also let them do the reports on video if they want to do it orally. I love technology! I think it can be dangerous if used at the expense of the basics like handwriting, but I think it can facilitate creativity as well.
– More later!
Literature, Narration, and Life Lesson
This morning Moira did a couple hours of a comprehensive speech and reading assessment. We’ll get results later after scoring so more on that to come.
This afternoon after she spent hours doing that testing I didn’t want to subject her to any intensive lessons, but I wanted to get a lesson done. I grabbed our fables book, it includes a picture and one page summary of various famous ones. I read it aloud and then we did a story chart on it – main characters, setting, plot. Then to make it even more fun I read it again while the kids took turns acting out the various parts and narrating back for me what happened. We were out in our newly converted sunroom/studio so there was tons of run around space after our morning dance class. I didn’t imagine they would have so much fun with it but C then read various fables to them while they acted out more and more of them.
So, fun way to narrate and cover story charts. It kept them all involved from the 8.5 year old down through the not yet 2 year old (though they did have to prompt him to recite his lines.) 🙂 When Kit came home I asked the kids to tell Kit about it, giving them another chance to narrate and cement the stories in their minds.
We found a TON of classic novels at the various thrift shops while on vacation and I snagged them all, along with a couple more modern ones of different reading levels. C’s into dragons right now so I found a couple for him and I was eating a belated lunch and trying to do some of my own reading when he sat next to me and started to talk about his latest novel. While selfishly I wanted to keep reading my book, I also realized that he was seeking a chance to talk with me (one of his love languages) and he was narrating a story to me (always a good lesson) and me connecting with my 8 year old son was much, much more important than me reading to myself. I know, duh, how obvious is it that he takes precedence? But I think when I’m focused on my own reading I get tunnel vision and it was humbling to hear the prompting, “Put your book down and listen to your son.” I’m really, really glad I did and I resolve to be more in tune with when my children are seeking those moments to connect with me.
Bare Books
Oh, this is gonna be bad. 🙂 In a good way. My sister just passed on this link from a friend of ours, and I’m already imagining how expensive this is gonna get.
Bare Books has blank books for kids to create their own stories, journal, sketch, etc. They come in a variety of sizes and styles – board books for little ones, spiral bound, square or rectangle, various sizes. They have blank calendars, journals, etc.
Minimum $25 order, flat rate $3 shipping, it’s free to schools or businesses but not homeschools (residential addresses are more expensive for UPS apparently?)
I am thinking of all sorts of fun ideas for once a year books written by the kids, nature journals, gifts for family & friends, customized baby books…
And actually the prices are fantastic, most of the books are less than $2/each so it’s only going to cost me a lot because I’m going to buy a ton.