Entries from August 2008 ↓

The joy of bad signage continues! Gotta love this one. If you’re going to fall, please do so C-A-R-E-F-U-L-L-Y.

…less chance of injury that way.

Here’s a fun activity to do with your primary-age children (K-3rd) to introduce the concept of nouns.

What are nouns?

Talk about nouns with your kids and discuss the three main noun categories.

Common nouns name people, places and things. Unless they begin a sentence, common nouns are not capitalized. Examples: man, toy, cereal, coffee shop, country

Proper nouns name specific things, and must be capitalized at all times. Examples: President Bush, Legos, Cheerios. Starbucks, United States

Collective nouns (also called group nouns) describe a set or group of people, animals or things. Examples: army, family, audience, flock (of sheep), bunch (of flowers), school (of fish), team (of baseball players)

Note: Making a noun plural does not make it a collective noun. The word cows is a plural noun / the word herd (of cows) is a collective noun.

Make a noun mini-book

1. Fold a 9” x 12” sheet of construction paper in half.
2. On the first page, add a title: “My Book of Nouns.” Below the title, help your child write a definition of common noun, proper noun, and collective noun.
3. Title the inside left page “Some Common Nouns,” the inside right pge “Some Proper Nouns,” and the back page “Some Collective Nouns.”
4. Once your child has labeled her mini-book, give her a few old magazines or catalogs. Ask her to cut out five pictures for each category, glue them in place on the appropriate page, and label the picture with its name.

Copyright © 2008 Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng

Young children in grades K-2 are usually considered “pre-writers”—just learning to write letters, words, and groups of words. Their writing experience should be fun! After all, isn’t our goal is to help our primary-age children build confidence as they gain the ability to write?

Daily Guided Writing 

Because children learn best by example, take time to model good writing techniques to your child. Let her narrate her words to you through a daily time of guided writing. This gives her that predictable, shared writing experience that’s so important to her development.

For beginning readers, the predictable patterns and easy sight words build confidence. For more confident readers, narration gives daily practice in reading and writing harder words and sentences.

Most importantly, this time of guided writing gives kids the freedom to put together ideas and create word patterns without the limitations and fear of having to write them down. So even if your child already knows how to write simple sentences, you can often get more from him if he is allowed to dictate his words to you rather than write on his own.

How to Elicit Narration from Young Children

Together, you and your child can write several short sentences about simple, familiar topics such as animals, friends, the weather, or upcoming events. Sounds easy, right? But if you ask your son to tell you all about friends, for example, he’ll probably say, “I don’t know.” It’s an awfully broad topic, after all, and his little mind may be all a-jumble. Most kids need direction, but some will need more help than others to formulate their thoughts into simple words.

So how do you get your child to dictate to you? It’s all about asking questions! For the youngest or most reluctant kids, begin by writing three to five predictable sentence starters, such as:

A friend is
Friends like to
Friends are special because

Next, discuss various options for ideas on how to complete each of the three sentences. Ask questions to lead and prompt your little one and to keep the dialog on track. Here’s one idea:

You:  Let’s think of some words that tell us about friends. I’ll go first. A friend is funny. Now it’s your turn.
Child: A friend is happy.
You:  A friend is important.
Child: A friend is kind.
You:  These are all great. Which one should we choose for today?
Child: A friend is kind.
You:  Let’s write that. A friend is kind. Here’s the marker. Can you help me write the word kind?
You:  What do friends like to do together?
Child: Play games.
You:  Let’s use complete thoughts. Friends like to play games together. Say that. “Friends like to play games together.”
Child: Friends like to play games together.
You:  Great. Let’s write it down. Friends like to play games together. Can you help me with the marker?
You:  Tell me—why are friends special?
Child: Because they share their toys?
You:  Yes, that’s a very important reason. Can you finish this sentence to make a complete thought? Friends are special because ____.
Child: Friends are special because they share their toys.
You:  Good job. Now let’s write that down. Friends are special because they share their toys.

When you’re done, you might end up with something like this:

A friend is kind.
Friends like to play games together.
Friends are special because they share their toys.

Not only have you modeled thinking skills to your child (by asking questions like who, what, and why), but you’ve also demonstrated simple techniques of beginning with a capital letter, ending with a period, and using a complete thought. See how a simple five-minute dialog can go a long way in teaching basic writing skills?

Copyright © 2008 Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

. . . . .

This dialog comes from Lesson 4 of WriteShop Primary Book A. WriteShop Primary is filled with dialog examples to help you prompt your child during daily guided writing times. Book A is now available in our store. Book B should be released later this year.

Who’s the woman behind the blog? Sure, I blog about writing. But perhaps you’re wondering if I’m a real person. I am! I hope I don’t intimidate you. Goodness. I’m just a regular wife, mom, grandma, friend—like you!

So I’m taking a detour today. I thought you might like to learn a bit more about me. And if you don’t care a whit, just scroll on by!

1. I’m not too athletic. (OK. I’m not at all athletic.)
2. I’m the oldest of four and the only girl.
3. I lived in Mexico City until I was six (but my Spanish still leaves much to be desired.) Even though I was only four, I remember the earthquake that toppled the famous El Angel statue.
4. I wear a hard contact lens in one eye and a soft lens in the other.
5. I have six adorable grandchildren. Here I am with 6-year-old Grant on his first roller-coaster ride! >>>
6. I can’t drink from a water fountain without choking. (OK. You can stop laughing now.)
7. Margherita pizza is the best. I’m all about fresh basil.
8. I’ve been married to my high school sweetheart for 33 years.
9. I love decorating for Christmas but I hate putting everything away.
10. Yosemite is one of my very favorite places in all the world.

So there you have it. Ten things about me! Want to play along? Tell me 10 things about you!

I confess that my quest for bad signage is far too easy. This one absolutely makes me want to weep.

It’s never too early to introduce your young children to the joy of writing. Even during the early elementary years (K-3), there’s so much you can do to model and encourage pre-writing and writing skills, such as reading aloud from quality picture books or asking your child to tell you about a picture he drew while you write down his words.

Early Writing Skills

Bear in mind that children develop at different rates. Fine-motor skills, like other stages of development, vary from child to child. Some budding writers, especially boys, will struggle with writing on a line, copying and forming letters, and putting their words and thoughts on paper. These skills and more come with time and patience.

The development of a young child’s writing is best achieved through:

• Plenty of time spent on writing activities.
• Many opportunities to write during the school day.
• Focused instruction that builds from your child’s efforts.

Your Child Needs YOU 

Clearly, young children cannot learn to write on their own. Even if you create an atmosphere rich with educational materials—picture books, lined paper, colored markers, crayons, and an alphabet chart—it’s not enough. To effectively develop basic writing skills, your child needs YOU—along with your example, encouragement, and daily guidance.

This season in your child’s educational development is an opportune time to teach and model writing within a warm, safe environment. As you teach your primary-aged child to write, you’ll find that repetition, routine, and consistency play a vital role in teaching basic skills. There’s no way around it—your involvement with your child during writing sessions is key to his success!

Consider WriteShop Primary

If your child is in kindergarten, first, or second grade and you need some help guiding her writing along, consider WriteShop Primary Book A. It encourages and reinforces this special parent-child partnership young learners depend on.

The beauty of WriteShop Primary is its adaptablity to meet your needs. If your child is older, yet behind in her writing, you can utilize many components of the program but not use the activities that have a “younger” feel. You can challenge your older child to write more each step of the way, according to her ability, especially taking advantage of the “Flying Higher” suggestions and optional activities at the end of each lesson.

And for beginning students, WriteShop Primary can be used as more of a “pre-writing” launch pad. You can use the discussion starters and activites to introduce your very young child to the wonderful and exciting world of writing. Your younger children will delight in the crafts and illustrations, and you can prompt them to tell you the stories and writing projects that you then write down for them until they are ready to start writing letters and words (and eventually sentences) on their own.

Order Book A

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng

From the archives—one of our most requested blog posts. Thought you might enjoy a midsummer poetry break!

 . . . . .

Cinquain: an unrhymed poem consisting of five lines arranged in a special way.

Planet
Graceful, ringed
Spinning, whirling, twirling
Dances with neighbor Jupiter
Saturn

A cinquain is an example of shape poetry. Because of the exact number of words required for each line of this poem, a unique, symmetrical shape is created from interesting, descriptive words.

The word cinquain comes from the Latin root for “five.” Notice that the cinquain has five lines that follow this sequence:

Line A: One vague or general one-word subject or topic.
Line B: Two vivid adjectives that describe the topic.
Line C: Three interesting “-ing” action verbs that fit the topic.
Line D: Four-word phrase that captures feeling about the topic.
Line E: A very specific term that explains Line A.

Here’s another example:

Insect
Hidden, hungry
Preening, searching, stalking
Waits as if praying
Mantis

Brainstorming

Use the tips below to brainstorm on blank paper for different ideas. Then follow the directions to write your own beautiful cinquain. When possible, try to use poetic devices like alliteration, onomatopoeia, or personification. Because the poem has a limited number of words, choose each word carefully!

Word Pair Ideas (general/specific)

• bird/parrot (crow, canary, dove)
• fruit/apple (pear, banana, watermelon, peach, etc.)
• season/spring (summer/fall/autumn/winter)
• winter/January (spring/April, summer/July, autumn/October)
• candy/jawbreaker (Snickers, jelly beans, licorice)
• storm/tornado (hurricane, blizzard, squall)
• water/river (ocean, lake, stream, creek)

Line A: Name a general topic (see the suggestions above for some ideas).
Line E: Rename your topic, being more specific. (This will be the last line of your cinquain.)
Line B: Brainstorm 5-6 vivid, concrete adjectives to describe Topic E. Do not choose words that end in “-ing.”
Line C: Brainstorm 5-6 highly descriptive participles (verbs ending in “-ing”) that fit Topic E.
Line D: Brainstorm several four-word phrases that capture some feeling about Topic E. Follow these tips to develop an effective phrase:

• Do not use any “to be” verbs or vague words.
• Do not repeat any words used elsewhere in the cinquain.
• If you can’t think of something, try a combination of adjective + noun + verb + adverb to achieve the most concrete phrase possible.

Writing Your Cinquain

1. Pick out your most descriptive words from your brainstorming and put your cinquain together.
2. When you are satisfied, recopy the poem onto clean notebook paper.
3. Center your cinquain on the paper.
4. Begin each line with a capital letter, and remember your commas. Do not use ending punctuation.
5. When finished, double-check for concreteness!

Line A. _______
Line B. _______ , _______
Line C. _______ , _______, _______
Line D. _______ _______ _______ _______
Line E. _______

Finally, when your children are all done with their cinquains, come back and post their poems in the comment section. We would love to see them!

Copyright © 2008 Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.