What would happen if children ruled the world?
Archive for September, 2005
Do your kids love sports?
Word games are a great way to learn about grammar. Kids especially bond to language when it’s clever or funny or about one of their passions!
The following grammar game idea comes from Brave Writer mom, Christine. She’s got boys who are crazy about sports. You might try something similar with any interest your child has. Simply find the appropriate literature (video game reviews, ballet magazine, quilting manual, cookbook). Thanks, Christine!
Grammar Game
1. Take the sports page and ask your kids to each pick an article. Read and enjoy bits of it together.
2. Next, have them circle all the verbs they can find.
3. Ask how many “to be” (state of being) verbs are used then note how many are action words.
4. Talk about the word pictures the verbs evoke. For instance, what mental images come to mind when they read words like “edged” or “squashed” or “tackled”?
5. Lastly, discuss why the writer might have chosen the verbs he or she did. For instance, is “upend” a stronger choice than “beat”? Ask your kids what words they might have picked instead.
Later you could play a version of the game with nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.
Have fun!
Image by Josh / Creative Commons Licensed
Skipping Stone
Today’s featured poem is from Alice Gunther, winner in the 10-11 age category.
Surging down the falls I run,
Mounting now I lift again
Coursing toward the setting sun,
Tumbling earthward with the rain.
Flying up–but not so fast,
Lower by the stream I creep,
My journey is complete at last,
Sinking downward in the deep.
We’re so proud of our poets! I’ll be posting more of these over the next weeks so keep checking back. And for today’s teatime, enjoy reading this original work by Alice (11).
Today’s writing exercise is…
Find three words in the dictionary that you’ve never heard before or don’t know the meaning of. Say them aloud several times and read the definitions. Use them in sentences. Say silly things to each other.
Put them on index cards with the word on one side and the definition (pick the shortest, most common definition) on the back (in case you forget what the word means). You can even put the part of speech.
Then spend the next several hours/days thinking of ways to combine these words with experiences, objets d’art, pictures and household furniture like the toilet.
You can stick these words on those items directly with duct tape. Or you can jot down the resulting sentence fragments on napkins and use them at dinner. Or you can start a blog and share your brilliance with the Internet world of word-peeping toms.
Just play with words, like toys, that you can blast or smash or cuddle.
Not as Graceful as She Should Be
Today’s featured poem is by Clair Gunther, age 8, winner of the 8-9 bracket.
She stompled out across the stage,
Like an elephant in a full-blown rage.
She floundered trying to keep time,
Like a shark’s long teeth, in a zig-zag line.
She arabesqued and teetered slightly,
As wild as Hawk Moths flying nightly.
A trip, a toss, she finally spun,
Shuffling with a penguin’s run.
I enjoyed Clair’s poem because it pulsates with wonderful action words like “stomple” (reminds me of Kipling), “floundered,” “arabesqued,” “teetered,” and “shuffling.” The riot of animal movements characterizing her subject add excitement to the poem’s premise: that this character is not very graceful.
Wonderful job! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
