Saturday, November 13, 2010

Mnemonic Device: Parts of Speech

Totally copied this from PW's site today.  My particular brand of filing doesn't to mesh well with me, so I'm gonna try blog filing.

A NOUN’S the name of any thing;
As school or garden, hoop, or swing.

ADJECTIVES tell the kind of noun;
As great, small, pretty, white, or brown.

Three small words we often see
Are ARTICLES - a, an, and the.

In place of nouns the PRONOUNS stand;
John’s head, his face, my arm, your hand.

VERBS tell of something being done;
As read, write, spell, sing, jump, or run.

How things are done the ADVERBS tell;
As slowly, quickly, ill, or well.

They also tell us where and when;
As here, and there, and now, and then.

A PREPOSITION stands before
A NOUN; as in or through a door.

CONJUNCTIONS sentences unite;
As kittens scratch and puppies bite.

The INTERJECTION cries out “Hark!
I need an exclamation mark!”

A little disclaimer from one of her readers:

Wait, wait! Part of that is wrong! Pronouns truly take the place of a noun: I, you, he, she, they, it.
His, her, its–they can’t stand in place of nouns; they describe noun. That makes them possessive adjectives.

John goes for a walk.
He goes for a walk.
*His goes for a walk.

Here's a little quiz for my kiddos.

Deze cat doesn't go for a walk.
Deze cat goes for a lengthy scratch.
Dat scratch makes me miss Scratch!
1)  Name the interjection.
2)  What part of speech is the word "lengthy".  (I'll give ya a tootsie roll for this, 'cause it's a little confusing to me!)  :)
3)  What languages do you think I think I'm speaking?  Is it a real language?  What language?
4) One a scale of 1-10, how crazy do you think I am?  :-)
5)  Write a decent poem for this picture, would ya?!
6)  Thank ya kindly.
7) Yeah, these last two don't really count, but if you do 'em I'll let you rub my feet.  :)

I'm nice like that.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Eh?

A.

Breakthrough.  My little man.  The man who detests pincher skills, and getting those pinchers out of his vocal cavity. 
The trick, for all us stressed out mothers of finger-sucking boys.  Thumb tack meets paper.  Paper loses.  Nothing like a little desctrucion for . . . Voila!  Just hurry and take pictues before discovers his foot works just as well for holding down the paper as his wet little fingers.  Then revel over and write about it weeks later.  Just saying...


He was very insistent that I get a good shot of the pin.  'Cause really, that's what it's all about, folks.

Friday, September 10, 2010

think, think, think

When I had my first child, I was obsessed with Pooh.  I don't know if that has anything to do with my kids now being obsessed with poo, but we'll leave that story for another day.  So, where was I?  In the bathroom? 

Huh.  Funny how that happens.

Oh, yes.  Think, think, think.  One of the key phrases in our house came from Pooh, "think, think, think."  Or when we were extra smarty, "piensa, piensa, piensa."  Back then I knew how to spell it, now I'm gonna have to dictionary.com it, realize it's Spanish, and then go find a real dictionary.  Nah,  too much work; we'll survive.

That's what it's all about, right?  Survival?  No? 

Huh.  Funny how that happens.

So in my direct way.  *snort*  I'm getting around to sharing a cool blog.  It's called:  Think!  A program designed to encourage kids to think outside the box.  I'm kind of relieved that it's for kids... I kinda feel off the hook from the whole thinking thing.  And I'm okay with that.  I think. 

Dang it.

Soball.

The kids did a pansy little challenge the other day.  Or so I thought.  I actually had to leave the room and put some earphones on in hopes of centering myself while they haggled around about the two pantry items.  'Cept it wasn't such a great idea, cause then my hearing aids just rang and rang.  So I went and took the bag of marshmallows and snarfed the whole thing down.   That was better.

'Cept I didn't really. 

Shoulda. Coulda. 

I'm hungry, be right back.

Mm-mmm,

So the challenge: 
Food Creations  ( I have a thing for food, so sadly, I couldn't resist.)
Choose 4 items from your pantry, 2 from your refrigerator and and 2 from your yard. You may use either tape, paperclips, or pencils as well. You may use other tools for construction but not in the solution.
Your challenge: make a vehicle.




For as simple as it looks, (and I missed the stick exhaust pipe on the other side) and as painful as it was to begin the project with 5 different ideas (and marshmallows) rolling around I was impressed that they actually came up with something that passed for a vehicle. 

In my eyes, the true challenge was working as a group and enjoying the activity.  Once they figured out I ate the marshmallows, er, how to listen to each other they were all smiles and laughs while asking for another challenge.

I think the next one will entail cleaning out that basket above Megan's head.  Or seeing how many mallows they can fit in my mouth. 

Something to float my boat.

Funny how that happens.


Sunday, August 29, 2010

Not-back-to-school photos

I'm slow. Seriously slow.

We've been homeschooling for close to three years now. I am finally starting a blog, and we took our first official "not-back-to-school-photos." Don't get me wrong, I sometimes obsessively take pictures of my kids doing random acts of, well, something, nothing, and everything in between. But after my friend Sunny took pictures of hers last year (and it was her first year!), a light went on in my head. (I think it was one of those with a smiley face on it, though I can't be sure...it doesn't show up all that often.) Anyhoo...I thought it was a great traditional school-y idea to keep up. I always loved seeing my physical changes from year to year.

As for other slow stuff...maybe I'll actually start homeschooling this year, finish that year supply of laundry, and who knows, socialize my kids or something. I don't wanna set my heights too high though. We'll see. ;)

'Nuff of my ramblings. Onto the kids. In alphabetical order:

Cherith, 11



Daniel, 13


Ellie, 8


Megan, 10



Thanny, 4



Rachel, 1 (next week can.not. happen. period. I refuse to have her turn two; Mama trumps. The end. Good-bye birthdays forever. The end . . . again.)



By the way, what does alphabetical mean, exactly? :)

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Sometimes my cleaning is productive.



I came across some little paper books from when my kids first learned to read and some sight word sheets.  Thanny has tinkered with letters and sounds so I figured I'd toss 'em his way and see what was what. 

Fifteen minutes later he read his first book.

He was so proud.
I was proud.
His siblings were proud.
His father was proud (he called him on the phone and read it, cause he was away making a deck.)

I had to take a few shots of the proud.



Besides...it maybe years before he picks up a second book. 

He's kinda like me that way.

'Preciate your sympathies.  :)

Thursday, June 3, 2010

If You Were


(an old but dear-to-me picture; the boys were cheering up a sulking sister with dandelions)

We had our first official poetry reading for "tea-time Thursday" today.  I got the idea from Bravewriter, I just love her stuff.   The way we're supposed to do it is with our best china (don't have any, whoops we're ruined!), tea (lemonade or milk for us), and cookies (no problem here).  Then, in a nutshell,  you snack while reading / sharing poetry. 

Cherith shared a poem from my new favorite book, The Book of Virtues by William J. Bennett:

"If You Were"

If you were busy being kind,
Before you knew it, you would find
You'd soon forget to think 'twas true
That someone was unkind to you.

If you were busy being glad,
And cheering people who are sad,
Although your heart might ache a bit,
You'd soon forget to notice it.

If you were busy being good,
And doing just the best you could,
You'd not have time to blame some man
Who's doing just the best he can.

If you were busy being right,
You'd find yourself too busy quite
To criticize your neighbor long
Because he's busy being wrong.

It was the highlight of our tea-time that isn't really tea time.  The kids decided they wanted to memorize it.   I'm thinking about trying to live it.  ;)

*milk cheers*

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Copywork and Observational Drawing


Two of my favorite homeschool activities: copywork and observational drawing. I think they're pretty self-explanatory.  Copywork is simply copying good writing taking special note of spelling, puncuation, and handwriting.  Observational drawing is observing for detail and drawing what you observe.  I think they teach much more than art and cheating copying.  =)

They help me to slow down and notice things I might not in an otherwise busy day.  They encourage (I hope) one (my kids!) to focus and study the creations around them as well as the way our language comes together to form its own kind of beauty.

This is mine from last night.  I encourage the kids to spend at least 10-15 minutes on their drawing.  I did mine at midnight.  Can you tell where I started falling asleep and stopped paying attention to detail?  The kids asked me today, "Oh, you just let Rachel scribble on that part?" 

Uh...no.

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