Imagine you work for an ad agency and your assignment is to write a commercial convincing people that a vacuum cleaner is the most romantic gift ever. Go!
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Archive for February, 2015
15 Ways to Leave a Love Note
Leave a love note!
Today’s task is to leave a love note for someone. Everyone in the family can participate. Help the ones who can’t transcribe their own thoughts (who don’t read or may not write, yet) to get in on the act. They can add little picto-graphs or stickers, if they like.
Leave the love notes in surprising locations and use unusual tools.
For instance:
- Write a note on the bathroom mirror with lipstick.
- Use Post-it notes and leave little notes all over the house for someone (or all over the inside of their car or all over their office or bedroom).
- Write a love note on the brown paper bag used to take a lunch to work or to a park day.
- Send a text!
- Post a status update on Facebook tagging the person you want to love up.
- Tuck love notes inside the book the person is reading, a few pages ahead of where they are.
- Write love notes on the edges of today’s newspaper for the newspaper reader.
- Put a love note (use a Post-it note) on the favorite beverage of your loved one that is lurking in the refrigerator.
- Sock drawers are a great place for love notes.
- Stick a love note on the left and right shoes of a favorite pair (maybe make a pun about left and right).
- Use shaving cream to squirt a note on the shower wall before your loved one showers.
- Stomp a note (maybe just a word) into the snow in the front yard. View from an upstairs window.
- Create a love note out of seashells and spell it on the kitchen table for a center piece.
- Write a love note on your palm. Close your hand into a fist. Approach the loved one. Tell them to tap three times for a surprise. When they do, open your hand and show your palm.
- Create a love coupon (in any form) and tuck it into your loved one’s purse or wallet.
Or think of your own!
Movie Wednesday: James and the Giant Peach
Our family recently started the Brave Writer lifestyle, and we’re all enjoying our new routine. My daughter, 10, is using The Arrow for James and the Giant Peach. My son, 7, was interested in the book, too, so we did it as a read-aloud.
Today, as a conclusion to the study, we watched the movie version on Netflix. We had a good discussion afterward, centering on how different the movie was from the book. The movie started off pretty accurately, but as soon as Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge didn’t get squished, they noticed a lot of differences.
My daughter enjoyed the book more, as the personalities of the bugs were more developed, there was a lot more detail, and it made more sense. My son liked the movie version – he liked seeing what we read about and didn’t seem to mind that it didn’t match up.
This was a good exercise for them to watch the movie version of a book they’d just read (or listened to). We talked about how movies can’t include everything in a book and why they might want to change some things.
They can’t wait to tell Daddy about it!
With joy, Andrea
Image (cc)
Need help commenting meaningfully on plot, characterization, make-up and costumes, acting, setting and even film editing? Check out our eleven page guide, Brave Writer Goes to the Movies. Also, tell us about a film you and your kids watched together (along with a pic if you have one) and if we share it on the blog you’ll receive a free copy!
Poetry Teatime: Snipped a rose from our garden
This is my six-year-old and my four-year-old at our very first “tea and poetry” last fall.
We snipped a rose from our garden for the centerpiece, and our tablecloth is made of baby blankets with the printed side turned down. My son and I read from Now We are Six, and my daughter picked something from A Child’s Garden of Verses.
We’ve kept this up every Friday afternoon, and they love, love, love it! (We have since acquired a “real” tablecloth, by the way!)
~Beth
Image (cc)
Visit our Poetry Teatime website!
Writing with Teens
Don’t miss these 5 blog posts on writing with teens:
Writing Starts Off the Page: Saturation and Incubation
You don’t want to ask for writing before your kids are good and ready to spill over onto the page. All of those writing books that give your kids topics are a waste of time (unless you happen to be one of the lucky ones with a child who loves to write and just needs a gentle nudge and away she goes!). Topics don’t generate writing. Having something to say does…
Writing with Teens: How to Begin
Without an essay guide, you might feel you can’t even begin to teach your students to write them. Hogwash. Let’s look at some ways that you can start essay training right now…
Essays: Not Just a Gateway to College
The word essay means “to try.” It comes from the Latin root. (In French, the word “essayer” is the verb “to try, to attempt.”) I think it helps to remember that an essay is an attempt, it’s your “best shot” at looking at the materials and giving a reaction (sometimes a strong opinion, sometimes an exploration of the issues, sometimes how that material relates to your life and background, your experiences and beliefs)…
Brave Writer’s Guide to Writing for Exams
I remind students to make a plan, follow the plan and stick to the plan because initially it is tempting to run off after some mental flurry of activity and think that is the same as good writing. It usually isn’t. Clarity and organization trump flights of fancy in timed assessment essay writing…
Why Academic Writing Doesn’t Come Naturally
Essay writing is like learning a brand new sport while playing the game. There are steps to take that make the process less daunting and that will prepare your kids to be successful with less stress. The actual format itself is not difficult to teach or understand. Learning how to bend the essay to the writer’s purpose, to make the essay form work for the writer instead of against him is something all together different…
Enjoy!
Check out Brave Writer’s Help for High School. It’s a self-directed writing program for teens that both teaches rhetorical thinking in writing, as well as the academic essay formats for high school and college.
