The Scientist has a face as long as Sunday, struggling with meeting Malvino for the first time. I've warned him (the Scientist, not Shakespeare's character) that he may need to act out some sentences with action figures or clay in order to really understand them. "Okay," the Scientist says, writing me off. He'll be sorry. Then I'll make him act the tricky parts out with clay. Then he'll be more open to my suggestions. Rinse. Repeat. His other lessons today will be from: Rod & Staff Grammar; Writing Strands; Spectrum Math; Life of Fred; Art of Argument; a homemade copybook that features verses about our religion's ritual structure. He'd wanted to start with Twelfth Night.
The Storyteller is putting a stamp on a letter he wrote to his godparents. He's got a list of independent work to do after that: Punctuation Puzzlers, Run-on Riddlers; Getting Started With Latin; Miquon; Elementary Greek; Drawing Textbook; North American Indian Tales.
The Gamer is only just waking up.
As you can see, we have gradually phased in book after book until we are now doing a full school day. I chose work they could do independently, either texts written to the student, or living books to be followed up by the making of a notebook page. I put their assignments for the day in a little school-style assignment book. All of their books and necessary supplies, as well as the planner, are in their own crates (dorm style crates) with a pencil box for miscellaneous small supplies. It's a little Charlotte Mason, in that I'm using living books for history, literature, and science. It's a little Robinson, in that the children have been taught methods for self-teaching and I only monitor to be sure they apply them thoroughly. It's a little textbook/workbook, can't deny that. It's not really classical, although the children are doing both Greek and Latin.
The Hero is constructing a clubhouse for Thooloo the kitten. He's arranged for a box to nearly float in the foot wide space between the back of the couch and the wall, and the cat is sitting primly in it as though he of course deserves this throne. Thooloo is too inexperienced to realize he should be very worried about his throne falling, or a child sitting on top of it.
I am taking a break to record this in between finishing up some school district paperwork and calling my neurologist.
The dog is sitting up, halfway between the Hero and the big kids at the table. She's watching all the action.
Can you recommend any grammar instruction books that are more playful in approach? So much of what I see is worksheets worksheets worksheets. Obviously there's good old trial and error through creative writing, but I'm looking for other ideas.
ReplyDeleteHmm, maybe.
ReplyDeleteMy first thought, and the only one I'd really call a playful instruction book, is Grammar With a Giggle. I'm not sure this is the best link for those books. There are grade level materials, too, tons of them. Amazon would have them.
http://maupinhouse.com/index.php/authors/jane-bell-kiester.html
There are a few books for children by Lynn Truss, "The Girl's Like Spaghetti", "Twenty-Odd Ducks." These are pretty funny trade books.
The Critical Thinking Co workbooks, http://www.criticalthinking.com/index.jsp, are along those lines, pointing out the wackiness that results when we are not careful. Their "The Language Mechanic" is comprehensive grammar for I'd say 4th-8th, but the Punctuation Puzzlers, Run-on Riddlers, and Editor in Chief workbooks stand alone and I *think* can be used earlier. (I don't have much experience with appropriate grade levels. I like their primary grade language arts workbooks though, colorful and thoughtful.) The company sells software versions of these activities that are considerably more fun than the workbooks.
Have you seen the Brian Cleary books? One is called "Dearly Nearly Insincerely: What is an Adverb?" I like them, and Mad Libs, for parts of speech.
Another thing that comes to mind is Winston Grammar, a manipulative approach. I've seen stuff like it in catalogs meant for schools, but this is not so much a giant system of expensive toys, more a guidebook for teachers plus some cardstock things assembled for cheap.
http://www.winstongrammar.com/
I guess there's a lot of Charlotte Mason style material, but it's all meant for homeschools. The basis of it narration, dictation, and copywork. In copywork, you'd write a sentence that the children are interested, pointing out how the grammar concept you're teaching is at work in the sentence (or passage). Then the children would copy the sentence. In dictation, you'd explain the grammar or punctuation concept while looking at the sentence with the child, then you'd read it outloud and ask the child to write it correctly. Probably the most effective, especially in an ESL situation, is narration. With this, you use a story or a painting, either reading it or talking about it, then you ask the child to talk to you about it or sum it up in one or two sentences. As the child tells you, you write it down for them. Then you look at the sentence the child gave you, explain the grammar, correcting any problems, and have the child copy the corrected version, or with young children just repeat the corrected version back to you orally. Some kids love this, some kids hate it. I find it depends on the story or picture I use. More or less trial & error, though.
What else? Hmm... There's an old-timey book called Grammar-land. http://dontneednoeducation.blogspot.com/2010/01/grammar-land-worksheets.html I'm afraid it might be above your kids' reading level.
A completely different book is: A Journey Through Grammarland. It's more of a fantasy novel kind of thing, more appropriate for upper elementary, but written modernly at least. Forgive the Christian link. It's a secular program. I use this URL because you can see samples here.
http://www.christianbook.com/journey-through-grammarland-1-2-kit/vernie-jones/pd/606137#curr
You might also be interested in a teacher's manual for Waldorf methods.
http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/bookstore-for-waldorf-homeschooling/publications-for-grades-1-through-5/living-language-language-arts-curriculum.html
I have heard very good things about the way this program brings grammar to life for children and their teachers:
http://www.rfwp.com/series3.htm#59
I have heard that the author LOVES language and that this is infectious.
Those are all my ideas. I could Google Montessori approaches but you've likely thought of that. :) I'll post more if I come up with anything else.