Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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Subject Topic: some homemade LA activities? Post ReplyPost New Topic
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hereinantwerp
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Posted: Sept 15 2008 at 10:23pm | IP Logged Quote hereinantwerp

I am not happy with the LA program I chose for the year. And not up for buying something else! So I thought I'd come up with some homemade activities--

my basic goal is to have him write something most days, occasionally polish/develop something, and teach a little basic grammar with hands-on activities, also taking a few spelling words to practice from our writing------???

So I have the idea of a "creative writing jar", with writing prompts to draw out of the jar. Anyone else have any good but SIMPLE ideas for activities we can do, along this vein???

My son is 9. Writing is his biggest academic weak area. The spelling, the mechanics, just everything about it. He's more willing than he used to be, but still what he writes tend to *look* atrocious, and while he needs to learn, I don't want to discourage or disenhearten him!! I want to keep it fairly engaging and fun, not a chore. Any ideas for me??? I feel confident about my own writing abilities but it always came very naturally to me, I'm not sure how to "teach" it to someone else. And keep it fun and not just critical. And he probably should write most days but for it not to be this arduous or hated chore. Sigh!


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JodieLyn
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Posted: Sept 15 2008 at 11:11pm | IP Logged Quote JodieLyn

what if you started smaller? something that can be done quickly.. like instead of a creative writing start.. what about the start of a sentence that he needs to finish "As the Alien landed, he.." do a whole bunch of those.. and then recycle his finished sentences as the creative writing starts?

That will give him a way to write quickly.. you could even do a couple a day without him needing to sit for any long period of time.

Maybe have a started sentence like the above at the beginning of the day.. and then he finishes the sentence.. then the second time you pull it out you write the next sentence.. and have him write another sentence. And then do that again one more time that day.

Next day you start a new one. The idea being to make smaller chunks of writing that are fun/funny. You can work on the handwriting and spelling and grammar.. and perhaps the interest and willingness level..

You might even save some of these sets of 5 sentences for a creative writing start after you've been doing sentences for a while.

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TracyQ
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Posted: Sept 17 2008 at 8:57am | IP Logged Quote TracyQ

This isn't writing, but for grammar, we used to do *verb charades*. I'd write out simple verbs on paper, they'd pick, and act out the verb, and we'd guess it, then use it in a sentence type of thing.


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lapazfarm
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Posted: Sept 17 2008 at 2:23pm | IP Logged Quote lapazfarm

Here is a link to a bunch of simple writing prompts. Just cut them up and put them in your jar!

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