There is a difference between curriculum, method and philosphy.
Here is my how our homeschool operates.
Curriculum: Eclectic- This is code for I use whatever materials I want.
•Math- Classical
Saxon, Kumon Drill Work, lots of extras- currently Hands on Equations and Math Mammoth
•Poetry, Grammar, Composition, Vocabulary- Textbook
MCT Island
•Literature- Eclectic
Sonlight books, Open Court Readers, history related, etc
•History- Weekly Unit Studies
Based on Gombrich's Little History
•Science- Trimester Unit Studies
Great Science Adventures- Space
Great Science Adventures- Human Body
Great Science Adventures- Tools and Technology
•Memory Work- Classical
I like to pull our curriculum together using several methods.
•a little bit of Waldorf- the part that emphasizes imagination and creativity in learning
•a little bit of Montessori- the part that emphasizes supporting a child's nature by allowing them self-exploration within prepared materials
•a chunk of Charlotte Mason style Classical- the part that emphasizes narration, chronological history, living books, enjoyment of poetry and short lessons
My overriding homeschool philosophy is adapted entirely from Charlotte Mason.
My child is not a blank slate, but is a whole person complete with his own personality and capacity for good and evil. I respect that he is born whole and that his mind is naturally designed to learn. I can provide the nourishment of education for his mind to grow healthy through a learning lifestyle where he is trained to be disciplined not in subject matter but in life for "education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life."
My child must be taught the difference between what he wants to do right now and his will to do what is appropriate/ right. He must also be taught to be careful not to rationalize something to be right simply because he wants it to be so. Along these lines, there can be no true happiness without first taking care of responsibilities. “…the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas. To help them in this choice we give them principles of conduct, and a wide range of the knowledge fitted to them.”
"I am, I can, I ought, I will." is the place from which I instruct, because we achieve through diligence not through intelligence or imagination. I use habit training as a road to success, but I exercise this alongside the idea that “perhaps the business of teachers is to open as many doors as possible.”
Gotta love CM.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Friday- Week in Review
Duncan is my 2nd grader.
Mei is my friend’s 5th grader.
Is it Friday again?!
We have finished week 16 and next week we will be taking time off from school to celebrate Thanksgiving. Hopefully, Duncan will not be sick, but this week both Mei and Duncan had a pretty good case of the sniffles.
Our poetry, science and history memory work.
Poem 2
The Tiger by William Blake
What does the cardiovascular system consist of?
The cardiovascular system consists of blood, the heart, and the blood vessels.
Tell me about Muhammad.
At age 40 Muhammad received his first revelation from God. Three years after this Muhammad started preaching these revelations and by the time he died most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam.
Duncan's memory work for math and LA.
Tell me the order of operations.
PEMDAS
Please excuse (my dear) (Aunt Sally)
parentheses, exponents,
multiplication/division from left to right,
addition/subtraction from left to right
List the 5 uses of a noun within a sentence.
subject, direct object, indirect object, object of preposition, possessive
Mei’s memory work for math and LA.
What is circumference?
The length of the smooth curve that makes a circle. Circumference is to a circle as perimeter is to a polygon.
Tell me about interjections.
An interjection is an emotion word.
Language Arts
Together we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres and Sentence Island. Duncan continued reading from Open Court titled From Sea to Shining Sea. He finished section one which wrapped up with a Thanksgiving story. At my house Mei began reading from Open Court’s Sound of the Sea. I like the stories, but I think that I would prefer to use something that has some guidance. I lean toward McGuffey, because I can get it online free. However, I would like to have a nice textbook like Glencoe or EMC Paradigm.
We reviewed nouns- definition, proper, plural, collective. They both began working on a parts of speech lapbook. We spent way more time than I had anticipated decorating the front of the lapbook.
Math
Mei is my friend’s 5th grader.
Is it Friday again?!
We have finished week 16 and next week we will be taking time off from school to celebrate Thanksgiving. Hopefully, Duncan will not be sick, but this week both Mei and Duncan had a pretty good case of the sniffles.
Our poetry, science and history memory work.
Poem 2
The Tiger by William Blake
What does the cardiovascular system consist of?
The cardiovascular system consists of blood, the heart, and the blood vessels.
Tell me about Muhammad.
At age 40 Muhammad received his first revelation from God. Three years after this Muhammad started preaching these revelations and by the time he died most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam.
Duncan's memory work for math and LA.
Tell me the order of operations.
PEMDAS
Please excuse (my dear) (Aunt Sally)
parentheses, exponents,
multiplication/division from left to right,
addition/subtraction from left to right
List the 5 uses of a noun within a sentence.
subject, direct object, indirect object, object of preposition, possessive
 |
| Stuffy nose Duncan in front of the computer |
What is circumference?
The length of the smooth curve that makes a circle. Circumference is to a circle as perimeter is to a polygon.
Tell me about interjections.
An interjection is an emotion word.
 |
| Mei and her weekly Chik-fil-A face painting. It was supposed to be a bouquet, but it looks like an ice cream cone! |
Language Arts
Together we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres and Sentence Island. Duncan continued reading from Open Court titled From Sea to Shining Sea. He finished section one which wrapped up with a Thanksgiving story. At my house Mei began reading from Open Court’s Sound of the Sea. I like the stories, but I think that I would prefer to use something that has some guidance. I lean toward McGuffey, because I can get it online free. However, I would like to have a nice textbook like Glencoe or EMC Paradigm.
We reviewed nouns- definition, proper, plural, collective. They both began working on a parts of speech lapbook. We spent way more time than I had anticipated decorating the front of the lapbook.
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| Duncan left. Mei right. |
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| Mei's minibook |
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| inside Duncan's lapbook |
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| Inside Mei's minibook |
Math
Mei has completed through lesson 50 in Saxon 65 and finished her Kumon multiplication workbook. She continued working in Math Mammoth Blue Series- Fractions 1. Duncan did Kumon and continued Math Mammoth Blue Series- The Four Operations. They both completed Hands on Equations Lessons 1 and 2. It is sooo nifty! I am so glad I finally worked up to spending the money on it.
History
Moving on to history, Duncan and Mei covered Chapter 20 of Gombrich’s A Little History. We also completed an Enchanted Learning worksheet on the Saudi Arabia and made a minibook on Charles Martel.
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| Duncan green. Mei pink. |
Science
This week we discussed the circulatory system in Great Science Adventures and looked over this section in DK’s The Human Body Book.
Other Stuff
On Monday we did the cub scout and Kumon thing. On Tuesday we went to Chik-fil-A's family night. On Wednesday Duncan went to violin, Grayson went to his math tutor, and we went to the library. On Thursday we took Grayson to his IEW composition class, Cici’s Pizza and 4-H. Then, Thursday night Duncan, Grayson and I went to see Harry Potter with Mei and Sarah (my friend and Mei’s mom)!
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Wordless Wednesday
Yeah, I know these photos were in my week in review, but I posted that so late and these photos are some of my favorites from this fall, so I posted them again.
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| Sitting in the window of the church lounge waiting on Grayson, Mei shares her funny book with Duncan. |
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| Grayson holds my aunt's little yorkie, Dolly, who looks like a little stuffed dog. She is so cute with her little chocolate chip nose. |
Monday, November 15, 2010
Memory Work
This an update on the memory work that I am doing with Mei and Duncan.
I like Anki, but my little man likes to have index cards to hold in his hands. Honestly, this is nice, because he can do them in the car or take them anywhere we may be going. Although I like the organization of the Simply CM file box and Rose's Mnemosyne design, we are just not that strctured yet. When we were just starting, it seemed silly to have so many tabs with nothing behind them.
I own Living Memory and the CC Foundations book and I do pull some ideas from there, but mostly I just pull from what we are studying. While our memory work isn't as structured as some of the systems online, our weeks of history and science are. So, for those two subjects I typed in the memory work for the semester. For math, I underlined things I would like them to memorize on the content pages of their Saxon books. When we get to one, I type it in. Mei is using Winston Grammar fairly scheduled, so I went ahead and typed up her grammar/ LA memory work for the first semester. For the Duncan who is using MCT Island I am more free form. I pull things based on what he is studying, but I am deciding at the last minute.
I write the week and the subject in the upper right corner of the side with the question. For example, the memory work from this past week all says (subject)15 in the upper right corner.
M15 for week 15 of school and M for math.
HG15 for week 15 of school and HG for history/ geography.
LA15 for week 15 of school and LA for language arts.
S15 for week 15 of school and S for science.
Poem1, Poem2 for poetry.
Some weeks a topic will have more than 1 card and some weeks it won't have any. For example, we just began poetry in Nov and just added poem2 this past week.
We use the large size 4 x 6 index cards and keep them in a soft box. I can't find ours, but it is a 13 pocket and similar to this.
All the cards the kids are currently memorizing are in the front. Once a card is memorized, we move it to the back pockets where the cards are organized by topic. Occasionally, we will review cards. This past Tuesday we reviewed all the LA cards and Thursday we reviewed all the science cards. If they lack immediacy on a card, it comes back to the front. When they have more cards, we will need to be a little more structured in when and what we review. Currently, they only have about 75 cards each, so we can be pretty laid back and I can spot check as we go. I don't think that we could be this relaxed with 250 cards.
Oh, I did mention that I typed these. I print them off and glue them to the index cards. (You could print them on card stock or printable cards, but that is a different story.) Anyway, I keep a typed file for a couple of reasons. If they lose a card, I know exactly what was lost and can print it out again. Also, I print the Mei's cards in a cursive font and the Duncan's in a bradley hand font (next year I plan to switch him to cursive), because I think it is important they can read cursive. I never write anything in cursive except my signature, so this was an easy way to meet that goal.
Memory work gives quite the bang for the buck. For very little time and effort it develops memory skills, installs pegs on which a child can hang additional information, incorporates independent learning, and so much more. Also, it is wonderful how all these things have built confidence in my students!
I like Anki, but my little man likes to have index cards to hold in his hands. Honestly, this is nice, because he can do them in the car or take them anywhere we may be going. Although I like the organization of the Simply CM file box and Rose's Mnemosyne design, we are just not that strctured yet. When we were just starting, it seemed silly to have so many tabs with nothing behind them.
I own Living Memory and the CC Foundations book and I do pull some ideas from there, but mostly I just pull from what we are studying. While our memory work isn't as structured as some of the systems online, our weeks of history and science are. So, for those two subjects I typed in the memory work for the semester. For math, I underlined things I would like them to memorize on the content pages of their Saxon books. When we get to one, I type it in. Mei is using Winston Grammar fairly scheduled, so I went ahead and typed up her grammar/ LA memory work for the first semester. For the Duncan who is using MCT Island I am more free form. I pull things based on what he is studying, but I am deciding at the last minute.
I write the week and the subject in the upper right corner of the side with the question. For example, the memory work from this past week all says (subject)15 in the upper right corner.
M15 for week 15 of school and M for math.
HG15 for week 15 of school and HG for history/ geography.
LA15 for week 15 of school and LA for language arts.
S15 for week 15 of school and S for science.
Some weeks a topic will have more than 1 card and some weeks it won't have any. For example, we just began poetry in Nov and just added poem2 this past week.
We use the large size 4 x 6 index cards and keep them in a soft box. I can't find ours, but it is a 13 pocket and similar to this.
 |
| Here is ours. |
Oh, I did mention that I typed these. I print them off and glue them to the index cards. (You could print them on card stock or printable cards, but that is a different story.) Anyway, I keep a typed file for a couple of reasons. If they lose a card, I know exactly what was lost and can print it out again. Also, I print the Mei's cards in a cursive font and the Duncan's in a bradley hand font (next year I plan to switch him to cursive), because I think it is important they can read cursive. I never write anything in cursive except my signature, so this was an easy way to meet that goal.
 |
| If you look very closely at the tabs, you can see where initially I thought we would try the Simply CM method. |
Memory work gives quite the bang for the buck. For very little time and effort it develops memory skills, installs pegs on which a child can hang additional information, incorporates independent learning, and so much more. Also, it is wonderful how all these things have built confidence in my students!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Friday- Week in Review
Duncan is my 2nd grader.
Mei is my friend’s 5th grader.
Our poetry, science and history memory work.
Poem 2
The Tiger by William Blake
List the 3 layers of skin.
The three layers of skin are the epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous tissue.
Tell me about St. Benedict.
St. Benedict, 480-547, wrote one of the most influential religious rules in Western Christendom. For this reason Benedict is often called the founder of western Christian monasticism.
Duncan's memory work for math and LA.
How do we find the area of a parallelogram?
We find the area of a parallelogram by multiplying the base times the height.
Tell me about indirect objects.
If there is a direct object, then there may be an indirect object: a noun or pronoun between the action verb and the direct object, and the indirect object is affected by the action.
The pelicans gave Mud a headache.
Mud told Oopsy a story.
Mud gave him and her an idea.
Mei’s memory work for math and LA.
What is perimeter?
The distance around a polygon is called the perimeter.
List the coordinating conjunctions.
FANBOYS- for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so
Language Arts
Together we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres and Sentence Island. Duncan and I also read Clovis, King of the Franks. Duncan also began a reader from Open Court titled From Sea to Shining Sea. It is a fairly easy read, but I am excited because he really hasn't covered much U.S. history. At my house Mei read finished Why Snails Have Shells. They both did some handwriting and some grammar (Mei- Winston Grammar, Duncan- Practice Island). They both are rolling along with NaNoWriMo and are doing very well.
Math
Mei has completed a couple of lessons in Saxon 65, continued working in her Kumon multiplication workbook, and started Math Mammoth Blue Series- Fractions 1. Duncan did Kumon and began Math Mammoth Blue Series- The Four Operations. I also ordered Hands on Equations and it arrived on Thursday, so we will be starting it next week!
History
Moving on to history, Duncan and Mei covered Chapter 19 of Gombrich’s A Little History. We also completed an Enchaned Learning worksheet on the Huns and made three minibooks titled: What were the Middle Ages?, Clovis, and Saint Benedict.
Science
Our chicken bone in vinegar wasn't ready last week, but look at it this week.
This week we discussed the skin, hair and nails in Great Science Adventures and also looked over this section in DK’s The Human Body Book.
Other Stuff
On Monday we did the cubscout and Kumon thing. On Tuesday Grayson went to his economics class and as usual we went to Chik-fil-A's family night. On Wednesday Duncan went to violin, Grayson went to his math tutor, and we went to the library. On Thursday we took Grayson to his IEW composition class. Mei and Duncan study in the lounge while we wait for him.
On Friday we went to Arts Alive! and then I took Duncan and Grayson to the Science Center.
Friday night we went to my aunt's house. She has the cutest little yorkie named Dolly.
Mei is my friend’s 5th grader.
Our poetry, science and history memory work.
Poem 2
The Tiger by William Blake
List the 3 layers of skin.
The three layers of skin are the epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous tissue.
Tell me about St. Benedict.
St. Benedict, 480-547, wrote one of the most influential religious rules in Western Christendom. For this reason Benedict is often called the founder of western Christian monasticism.
Duncan's memory work for math and LA.
 |
| Duncan view the giant bone at the Science Center. |
How do we find the area of a parallelogram?
We find the area of a parallelogram by multiplying the base times the height.
Tell me about indirect objects.
If there is a direct object, then there may be an indirect object: a noun or pronoun between the action verb and the direct object, and the indirect object is affected by the action.
The pelicans gave Mud a headache.
Mud told Oopsy a story.
Mud gave him and her an idea.
Mei’s memory work for math and LA.
 |
| Mei again has her face painted at Chik-fil-A. |
What is perimeter?
The distance around a polygon is called the perimeter.
List the coordinating conjunctions.
FANBOYS- for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so
Language Arts
Together we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres and Sentence Island. Duncan and I also read Clovis, King of the Franks. Duncan also began a reader from Open Court titled From Sea to Shining Sea. It is a fairly easy read, but I am excited because he really hasn't covered much U.S. history. At my house Mei read finished Why Snails Have Shells. They both did some handwriting and some grammar (Mei- Winston Grammar, Duncan- Practice Island). They both are rolling along with NaNoWriMo and are doing very well.
Math
Mei has completed a couple of lessons in Saxon 65, continued working in her Kumon multiplication workbook, and started Math Mammoth Blue Series- Fractions 1. Duncan did Kumon and began Math Mammoth Blue Series- The Four Operations. I also ordered Hands on Equations and it arrived on Thursday, so we will be starting it next week!
History
Moving on to history, Duncan and Mei covered Chapter 19 of Gombrich’s A Little History. We also completed an Enchaned Learning worksheet on the Huns and made three minibooks titled: What were the Middle Ages?, Clovis, and Saint Benedict.
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| Mei's pink. Duncan's green. |
Science
Our chicken bone in vinegar wasn't ready last week, but look at it this week.
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| Kind of makes me want to run take a calcium supplement! |
This week we discussed the skin, hair and nails in Great Science Adventures and also looked over this section in DK’s The Human Body Book.
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| Their minibooks- Mei left and Duncan right. |
Other Stuff
On Monday we did the cubscout and Kumon thing. On Tuesday Grayson went to his economics class and as usual we went to Chik-fil-A's family night. On Wednesday Duncan went to violin, Grayson went to his math tutor, and we went to the library. On Thursday we took Grayson to his IEW composition class. Mei and Duncan study in the lounge while we wait for him.
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| Mei and Duncan do memory work on the couch. |
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| Reading in the lounge window. Evidently Mei's book was so funny it needed to be shared. |
On Friday we went to Arts Alive! and then I took Duncan and Grayson to the Science Center.
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| They needed to design something that caught the ball regardless of which of which of the three places it fell and then would guide it back to the entry hole. |
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| Duncan's reflection on the bees. |
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| The giant lever lifts the car. |
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| Making bottles shoot into the air. |
If you didn't notice, then I will point it out to you. Yes, Duncan wore the same shirt Thursday and Friday.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Read-Aloud Thursday
All said, have you ever tried to find a children's biography of Clovis? I think that this is it.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Friday Week in Review
Mei is my friend’s 5th grader.
Our science and history memory work.
List 3 types of muscle.
The 3 types of muscles are skeletal, smooth, and cardiac.
Tell me about the fall of Rome.
Taxes, slavery, unemployment, and diseases all contributed to the fall of Rome. The last emperor of the Western Roman Empire was deposed by the Goths in 476.
Duncan's memory work for math and LA.
List the names and characteristics of 6 quadrilaterals.
trapezium- no sides parallel
trapezoid- one pair of parallel sides
parallelogram- two pairs of parallel sides
rhombus- parallelogram with equal sides
rectangle- parallelogram whose corners form right angles
square- rectangle with equal length sides
Tell me about possessive pronouns.
Possessive pronouns show ownership and they never need an apostrophe.
List the possessive pronouns.
my, mine, our, ours
your, yours
his, her, hers, its, their, theirs
Mei’s memory work for math and LA.
skip count by 8's and by 9's
8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 72, 80, 88, 96
9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90, 99, 108
Tell me about conjunctions.
A conjunction joins two words or two groups of words together.
Language Arts
In poetry we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres and Sentence Island. Duncan and I continued reading Arabel’s Raven finished story one. Duncan and I also read Who in the World Was the Acrobatic Empress? The Story of Theodora. At my house Mei read a several fables from Why Snails Have Shells and some more in Ballet Shoes. They both did some handwriting and some grammar (Mei- Winston Grammar, Duncan- Practice Island). They both began NaNoWriMo and are doing very well. On the other hand I admit defeat. I do not have the time in my day to write 2000 words- at least not this year.
Math
Mei has completed through lesson 47 in Saxon 65 and continued working in her Kumon multiplication workbook. Duncan is really squatting in order of operations at Kumon. He has been sitting here for what seems like forever, so this week we really just looked at Kumon worksheets.
History
Moving on to history, Duncan and Mei covered Chapter 18 of Gombrich’s A Little History. We also read a couple of pages in Kingfisher and the section on Justinian and Theodora out of Power Basics World History 1. We made three minibooks titled: the modern country of Turkey, The Byzantine Empire, and Justinian & Theodora.
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| Duncan's front in green. Mei's inside in pink. |
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| Outside of Mei's in pink. Inside of Duncan's in green. |
Science
We discussed the bones and muscles in Great Science Adventures. We did the chicken bone in vinegar, but it wasn't very spongy, so we returned it to the vinegar and will check it again next Tuesday. They looked over the muscle section in DK’s The Human Body Book and finished their cool skeletal and muscular systems lapbooks.
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| Outside of Mei's in purple. Interior right side of Duncan's on right. |
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| Outside of Mei's minibook on left. Inside of Duncan's minibooks on right. |
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| Inside of Mei's minibook on left. Outside of Duncan's minibook on right. |
Other Stuff
Mei and Duncan went out trick-or-treating and raked in quite a lot of loot. My neighborhood is fabulous at Halloween.
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| Goddess and Ninja |
They sort the candy by type and then toss all the unwanted candy into the center. You can grab candy you do want from each others discard. When all was said and done, Mei gathered the unwanted candy to take to swim team.
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| Unwanted Candy in the Middle |
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| Eating lots of candy |
Mei had her face painted at Chik-fil-A on Tuesday family night.
Duncan went to violin on Wednesday.
Grayson had a birthday and turned 17! Woohoo!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Read-Aloud Thursday
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Wordless Wednesday- Happy Halloween
I plan to post more about Halloween in my weekly update, but I wanted to share my EtchASketch Halloween sign.
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| less messy than a pumpkin and when I am ready for it to go away I just shake it :-) |
I plan to post more about Halloween in my weekly update, but I wanted to share my EtchASketch Halloween sign.
NaNoWriMo Schedule
This is the NaNoWriMo schedule that I am using with Duncan and Mei. It has been so easy for them. I wish I could say the same about myself. I can't seem to get the words on the page. :-(
We have shut up their editors. I am however correcting spelling, because I can't have them doing things like spelling very as vary for a solid month.
They needed a little bit of guidance as this is their very first NaNoWriMo, so I created a 15 day writing schedule with an IEW challenge for each session. I plan to let them complete days 4 through 6 in any order that makes the best sense for their story.
Day 1 Topic: Setting- Write about the when and the where of the story.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include a simile or metaphor.
Day 2 Topic: Write a description of the main character.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include quality adjectives.
Day 3 Topic: Describe a normal day in the main character's life.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include strong verbs.
Day 4 Topic: Describe the extraordinary day in the main character's life when things change.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include a www. asia clause.
Day 5 Topic: Introduce the supporting character.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include a who/which clause.
Day 6 Topic: Write about what the main character wants or needs.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include a quality adverb/ -ly word.
Day 7 Topic: Write about the villain and/ or the obstacle/ problem. (part1)
LA (IEW) challenge: Include alliteration.
Day 8 Topic: Write about the villain and/ or the obstacle/ problem. (part2)
LA (IEW) challenge: Include a because clause.
Day 9 Topic: Write about how the main character feels about the villain and/or the obstacle/ problem.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include dual verbs (compound predicate).
Day 10 Topic: Write about how the supporting character reacts to this situation and their role in it.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include dialog.
Day 11 Topic: Write about how the main character feels about the supporting character's reaction to the problem and how he now feels about the supporting character.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include a question.
Day 12 Topic: Write about the sequence of events leading up to what the character wants being blocked by the villain or obstacle.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include 3 SSS (short staccato sentences).
Day 13 Topic: What happens? Does the main character get what he wanted? How does he feel about getting or not getting what he wanted?
LA (IEW) challenge: Begin a sentence with a prepositional phrase.
Day 14 Topic: What happens to the supporting character and the villain? How do they feel about the outcome?
LA (IEW) challenge: Include dual quality adverbs/-ly or dual quality adjectives.
Day 15 Topic: Write about what the main character learned and facts supporting this.
LA (IEW) challenge: Begin a sentence with a clause.
My 2nd grader has a 1,750 word goal and thus is shooting for about 120 words in each session.
My friend's 5th grade dd has a 2,500 word goal and thus is shooting for about 170 words in each session. I have also challenged her to use at least one word from the MCT 100 Classical Words list in each session.
They have completed day one and day two without any problem. I hope the rest of the schedule is as uneventful. OTOH- I am starting to think that maybe I set the word counts too low.
I am in no way expecting an incredible story. I am just expecting the words to get on the page.
We have shut up their editors. I am however correcting spelling, because I can't have them doing things like spelling very as vary for a solid month.
They needed a little bit of guidance as this is their very first NaNoWriMo, so I created a 15 day writing schedule with an IEW challenge for each session. I plan to let them complete days 4 through 6 in any order that makes the best sense for their story.
Day 1 Topic: Setting- Write about the when and the where of the story.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include a simile or metaphor.
Day 2 Topic: Write a description of the main character.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include quality adjectives.
Day 3 Topic: Describe a normal day in the main character's life.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include strong verbs.
Day 4 Topic: Describe the extraordinary day in the main character's life when things change.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include a www. asia clause.
Day 5 Topic: Introduce the supporting character.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include a who/which clause.
Day 6 Topic: Write about what the main character wants or needs.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include a quality adverb/ -ly word.
Day 7 Topic: Write about the villain and/ or the obstacle/ problem. (part1)
LA (IEW) challenge: Include alliteration.
Day 8 Topic: Write about the villain and/ or the obstacle/ problem. (part2)
LA (IEW) challenge: Include a because clause.
Day 9 Topic: Write about how the main character feels about the villain and/or the obstacle/ problem.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include dual verbs (compound predicate).
Day 10 Topic: Write about how the supporting character reacts to this situation and their role in it.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include dialog.
Day 11 Topic: Write about how the main character feels about the supporting character's reaction to the problem and how he now feels about the supporting character.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include a question.
Day 12 Topic: Write about the sequence of events leading up to what the character wants being blocked by the villain or obstacle.
LA (IEW) challenge: Include 3 SSS (short staccato sentences).
Day 13 Topic: What happens? Does the main character get what he wanted? How does he feel about getting or not getting what he wanted?
LA (IEW) challenge: Begin a sentence with a prepositional phrase.
Day 14 Topic: What happens to the supporting character and the villain? How do they feel about the outcome?
LA (IEW) challenge: Include dual quality adverbs/-ly or dual quality adjectives.
Day 15 Topic: Write about what the main character learned and facts supporting this.
LA (IEW) challenge: Begin a sentence with a clause.
My 2nd grader has a 1,750 word goal and thus is shooting for about 120 words in each session.
My friend's 5th grade dd has a 2,500 word goal and thus is shooting for about 170 words in each session. I have also challenged her to use at least one word from the MCT 100 Classical Words list in each session.
They have completed day one and day two without any problem. I hope the rest of the schedule is as uneventful. OTOH- I am starting to think that maybe I set the word counts too low.
I am in no way expecting an incredible story. I am just expecting the words to get on the page.
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