Christmas Writing Project

We have one more week of classes before we take a break for Christmas.   My teens are doing this Holiday Family Narrative.  Earlier this term, the kids wrote about their families’ birthday celebrations.  I am going to encourage my kids to illustrate their stories.   Here is the story I wrote as an example.  Fun, right?  I can’t wait!

Write Lab Reports

 Let me share a few resources about writing lab reports.  Here is the slide deck I used for a Biology lab my kids did with enzymes.  Below are the lab report rubric and three sample labs.  I find examples to be helpful.  I teach Bio and Chem classes for a Co-op.  My husband teaches Physics.  The Co-op families belong to several different, online programs.  Some online schools require four, formal lab reports.  My husband and I both assign at least four, formal reports.  We have other lab reports and assessments. 

Composition: College Application Cover Letter

 The kids are writing College Application Cover letters with Google Docs letter templates.  We’re creating a packet: college application, college resume, cover letter, and essay.  The cover letter should explain why the student wants to go to a particular college and why the college should enroll the teen.  Use this link for a sample letter.  

Composition: Write a Resumé

 We worked on writing résumés for college.  We used templates from Google Docs.  Here is the sample I used from the University of Virginia.  The kids added their skills and interests.  Most of the class has participated in Work Camps through their youth groups.  The youth groups have tool trainings, build and raffle furniture, and participate in huge Work Camps, that help families in need with repairs.  The teens can replace a window, build a ramp, paint walls, or repair a deck.  The kids have a wide variety of skills: piano, animal husbandry, speech, karate, choir, care-giving, cooking, etc.  I share my resume with the kids.  Next we are working on cover letters.  A college résumé and cover letter with the college application can distinguish a student from other applicants.

Composition: Grab and Go--- Five Senses Writing

 The Co-op Composition class used this Grab and Go Exercise to launch a workshop using Five Senses  to write a paragraph.  Below is the image we used as inspiration.  The kids are writing sample lessons for their grant proposals for a Montessori school.  The kids wrote descriptions for baking bread, making jelly, and felting wool.  Next they made concept maps to organize their descriptions.  Lastly, the kids wrote descriptive paragraphs.  This exercise is part of each student's sample lesson included with the proposals.  The class is assembling the materials for the proposal in class, Tuesday.

Cheap and Easy Study Aid

 Are you familiar with concept maps?  It’s a way to organize ideas.  I used this list of ecological terms and wrote them on to index cards.  The kids organize the cards into a map.  I ask kids to explain their maps.  With index cards, teens can make adjustments.  Basically, I want the kids to understand how things fit together or whether they understand the terms.  Below are a few examples.  Concept maps are a tool I use for assessment.

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Coping with Chaos

 This year’s theme is chaos.  I’m teaching three classes with the local Co-op.  I’m coping with the logistics of conflicting schedules, illness, and family emergencies.  I have to punt when I get last minute requests to log-on to class remotely.  The solution is to put the daily lesson and links into one question in Google Classroom—every single day.  I need to have all of the materials assessable digitally and on paper.  I toggle between the kids meeting remotely and the kids live in the classroom.  One benefit is that the kids who miss class entirely can see the missing work.  

Here are tomorrow’s topics with the links to the exercises and notes.

Most of my class resources are already organized into folders in Classroom.

Write a Review!

Tomorrow my composition class is going to write a review.  It can be a product review, hotel experience, or service assessment.  My class includes practical writing exercises.  My husband and I spent the weekend in Pittsburgh.  One night at a hotel was disastrous.  A local football team treated 20 middle schooler to an overnight in the hotel.  The kids swamped the tiny pool, threw furniture in the pool, and monopolized the waffle machine at breakfast.  They ran up and down in the hall until 11:00 pm.  Once locked in at 11:30 spent the night yelling and playing rambunctiously in their rooms—right next to ours.  The hotel, itself, was no prize.  I wrote the review below after we checked in.  Trust me, I added more details about our trip in a second review.  

Write your own recommendation!

 Hear me out!  As an educator, I get many, many requests for recommendation letters.  I review portfolios and write college recommendation letters for admission departments at colleges or scholarship applications.  Here  is a generic, student recommendation.

Ask your teen to describe his or her attributes: a thirst for justice, a heart for service, joie de vivre, or attention to detail.  What skills does your teen have?  Is she a competitive athlete?  Does he volunteer with the thrift store or annual work camp?  Now for the hard part: write your own recommendation.  Rewrite this three different ways.  Now you have three templates to offer teachers, pastors, and youth group leaders when you ask for recommendation letters.  These adults are free to write their own letters.  However, many, many adults will be happy to have some help writing a letter for your teen.

Composition Exercise: Ghost letters

My niece, Kayla, and several students are planning to go to college next year or the following year.  Each year, I write several recommendation letters for colleges or scholarship applications.  My niece attends a large charter school in PA.  Her teachers get many requests for recommendation letters.  She should write ‘ghost letters’.  A ‘ghost letter’ is a template.  Kayla needs to write three different recommendation letters in a document.  She can give these to he teachers and ask them to read and edit the template.  

I use ‘ghost letters’ for grants, too.  I write recommendation templates for people who partner my projects.  These people often do not have extra time; many folks hate to write.  Tuesday, we are going to add ‘ghost letters’ to May list of activities.  If your teen is going to college next year, now is the time to get started writing his or her own recommendation.

Descriptive Writing Exercise: Fortune Cookies

 Update: Here are a few examples.

The Composition class is working on paragraphs.  I want to focus on descriptive paragraphs.  Here is a scripted lesson using fortune cookies.  Here is a gallery of over 600 fortunes.  Here are fortunes you may have read in a cookie.  Use these as writing prompts or have kids rewrite them.    Write along with your teen.  Let him or her she you struggle!  I took a stab at a fortune cookie below.

‘You will receive money from a most unexpected source.’  

My sister, Cheryl finds money.  Once, she was complaining about something stuck to her shoe—a five dollar bill.  Cheryl was walking on a sidewalk in New York City.  Finding money is a bit like luck.  It tends to arise is unexpected places.

How do you really plan lessons?

 Yes, I have written many, many, formal lesson plans.  What do my plans really look like?  Most of my plans are lists.  Before class starts, I pull up a slideshow I saved in Google Drive and open relevant links.  The lists are road maps of exercises or activities to do in a given class.

I do organize things pretty well in Google Classroom by subject and topic.  When I start a new class, I copy the previous Google Classroom to save all the links and assignments.  This helps enormously with planning, too.  I just open Classroom and look at the previous year’s activities.  

But my real plans for Composition are below.  The notebook has specific ideas.  I jot notes during class, too.

I have a full year of notes for Biology.  Every time I teach Bio, I use the original notes to see how my pacing compares to previous years.

The last type of plan is a question in Google Classroom.    What are we doing?  What did we do?  These are labeled by dates.

Writing Contests

 I’m looking for ways to get my teens in the Composition class to write well.  I’m going to try contests VFW Youth Contests, American Legion’s contest, John Locke Essay, Scholastic competitions, and Young Authors Writing Competition.  Look for local contests.  Our local library system has an annual Teen Poetry Contest.  Check out this lit from Linkedin.  I’ll let you know what my teens think about the idea of contests.

Alternative to Jamboard

 I just received an email from Google that Jamboard is disappearing in a year.  Booo!  Jamboard is an online whiteboard.  I taught Co-op classes remotely during COVID.  While most of our classes are live, now, my teens sign in remotely for a variety of reasons: car trouble, logistics conflicts, sick sibling, etc.  I like to have a digital whiteboard.  I also use Jamboard to grade and send feedback.  My teens frequently test at home.  They upload tests or assignments.  I take a screenshot and upload it to Jamboard to mark.  I can share the Jamboard with the student for him or her to correct.  Below is an example.

There are loads of digital whiteboards.  Here are several Jamboard alternatives.  I don’t need text boxes, sticky notes, or fancy functions.  I want to be able to use a stylus on my iPad, just like I use a marker on a whiteboard in class.  I tried a few whiteboard apps.  For most, there are too many choices.  I like Web Whiteboard.  It looks and functions like Jamboard.  Web Whiteboard is a Miro product.  I tried Miro, too.  This app has too many moving parts for me.  It looks as though I have a year to get acquainted with a new whiteboard.  Sigh.

Lesson Plans

 My Co-op class is writing lessons for their grant proposals on behalf of a Montessori School: chickens, jams and jellies, a gazebo, raised beds, tool shed, sheep, and a pizza garden.  Each student is working on nomenclature cards, proposals, budgets, too.  Tuesday, our focus is on the lesson plans.

1. Science lessons are often 5E Model Lesson Plans.  Here is a slideshow and sample lesson plan about watersheds I wrote and used for an instructional unit.  I use this model for major projects.

2. Use a template.  

We are going to use This template Tuesday.  I’ll post more examples.

Writing Prompt: Describe your favorite meal.

We are still working on our grant proposals and editing student’s papers from outside classes.  We had ten minutes at the end of class.  I issued a writing prompt: Describe your favorite meal.  I try to do the writing assignments along with my students.  Below is my sample.  I could not decide on a favorite meal.  I wrote about my husband, Rob’s, favorite meal instead.   

This literally was a ten minute exercise.  Two kids wrote about their last birthday meals.  They just had too many favorites.  The next impromptu writing assignment is about ‘My Most Embarrassing Experience’.  I think I’ll write about the time I fell through a sewer grate. 

Home-school Days in Virginia 2023

 Here are 27 Homeschool days for museums, lighthouses, Monticello, Luray Caverns, etc.  There are many home-school families in Virginia.  Look at the website.  One small museum in Winchester, VA, the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, offers ‘Homeschool Wednesdays’.  The Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum has educational programs, too.  Do you have an active Co-op group?  See if a member  wants to contact local attractions, parks, and  museums to see if they are interested in setting up a home-school day or specific series of events, such as art lessons, or historical re-enactments.  For example, Blandly Experimental Farm hosts several educational programs.  These types of organizations may be willing to create an event for your Co-op.

Home-school parents, you are educators!

 There are resources available for teachers and educators.  Remember, you are your child’s teacher.  Our library system offers benefits to teachers.  The chief benefit is no deadline for returns.  Elementary teachers frequently borrow a stack of reading books for their classrooms; these teachers do not have any fines.  Ask your library to mark your library account as ‘teacher’ and ask about any benefits.  My husband and I teach for our Co-op and have ‘teacher’ status.  Any program for educators should be available to you!  When I register as an educator, I list the name of our Co-op as the school.  We teach in our basement classroom and use our address when needed.  You should, too!

Co-op Resources: Free Traveling Trunks!

Have you heard about traveling trunks?  The National Museum of the Marine Corps (outside Washington D.C. near Quantico Marine Corps base) offers Traveling Trunks. (Scroll down this page to the bottom.). Here and here are brochures about the Marine Corps Museum’s traveling trunks.  The Smithsonian Libraries have Traveling Trunks, too. Here is a sample from Nice Tu Meet You.  These are free.  Scrutinize the online contents carefully.  The website has the contents of each trunk.  The contents page load slowly.  

The Richmond National Battlefield Park has this traveling trunk.  Homestead, Nebraska has several trunks available, such as the Buffalo Trunk.  There is a trunk from Project EduBat with a list of contacts across the U.S.  The National Park Service in Gettysburg offers a trunk.  

Loads and loads of traveling trunks.  I’ve borrowed trunks.  Timing is essential.  Your Co-op may be doing a specific history lesson. Look at the contents online in advance. Call the contact directly and see if the trunk is available.  Be sure to ask about any fees, such as return shipping.  Check nearby museums and ask if they have traveling trunks available on loan.  Fun, right?

Fun Writing Assignments

 My kids are working on grants for a Montessori school.  The kids are working on spreadsheets for their budgets, and three-part nomenclature cards.  I’m presenting their proposals tomorrow at a video meeting with the Montessori school.  For me, this is writing with a purpose.  The kids also wrote letters to the Bishop of our Diocese.  I shared my letter and we edited it.  

What could your child do that is authentic?  Write a letter to the editor.  One teen, Dom, has a sister who is starting an Etsy shop.  We plan to write fun captions and descriptions.  Have your teen write a product review.  Let your teen practice on Amazon purchases.  Have her write the review in a Google doc to proof before submitting the review.  One thing we do in class is look at each other’s work and clean up the prose.  (BTW I was bitterly disappointed in the mini printer I ordered through Walmart.  I had hoped to capture images to use with my Bio class.). The review below was one I submitted today to Walmart. I’ve been obsessed making felt food for young friends.  Try small writing projects.  Get your teen in the habit of editing his work regularly.

Classic Learning Test: Alternative to SAT or ACT Tests

 Have you read about the Classic Learning Test (CLT)?  I just read about the test in this WSJ Opinion article.  The news explained that Florida’s university system would accept the CLT in lieu of the SAT or ACT.  Here is a brief comparison of the SAT and ACT tests.  

Here is a sample CLT test from their website.   I registered on the website in order to access the three additional practice tests.  CLT sells a study guide for $45.  The website has a list of colleges which accept CLT scores.  The screenshot below shows the college in Virginia which accept the CLT.  Many families incorporate classic literature, philosophy, and Founder’s documents into their family’s school curriculum. Take a look at the CLT website and talk to the admission counselors at colleges your teens are considering for admission.  I love to see an alternative to the SAT and ACT, especially one that embraces sound, classical education.

 

Are you new to home-schooling? Learn about these basic resources.

 There are a few excellent resources many home-school families use.  If you are new to home-schooling, these web sites may be unfamiliar.  First is Home Science Tools.  They have science materials, lab equipment, and even dissection specimens, all at reasonable prices.  You can buy two test tubes or 30 mL of a chemical.  Next is Cathy Duffy Homeschool Curriculum.  Before I taught British Literature, I research her review about Stobaugh, before determining my curriculum.  Look at her 103 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum.  Apologia is a popular science series among home-school families.  Take a look at the Young Explorers Series from Apologia, too.  Donna Young has schedules available for Apologia textbooks.  The web site has a planner for the Young Explorer series.  Be advised, a Notebooking Journal accompanies each  textbook in the series and has a detailed syllabus.  I’ve found these resources to be useful.  I hope you do, too!

More Common Errors

 Let me share of list of links to address common errors: Which, That or Who,  Five Uses of a Colon,  Principle vs Principal, and Homophones.  Here is a detailed explanation for its and it’s, your and you’re, and there, their, and they’re.  Many people struggle with these topics because they had little instruction in grammar.  

For example, a colon follows a noun in a list.  The lab requires these materials: a digital scale, three beakers, one thermometer, a ring stand, and a clamp.  

My class is still working on introductory paragraphs.  Our work today centered on changing passive sentences to active sentences.  

‘The breakdown of rocks by weathering and erosion construct most sedimentary rocks.

‘Weathering and erosion form most sedimentary rocks.’

Our class is learning how to edit paragraphs for clarity.

Buy a thesaurus!

 My Composition class spent the morning revising their introductory paragraphs.  Each student has a different essay paper.  The kids are bringing in work from other classes.  We spend time discussing word choice in sentences.  One tool we use is a thesaurus.  An online thesaurus is fine; the college editions are better.  For example, we substituted ‘demonstrate’ with ‘illustrate’.  Buy a used copy.  I found mine at a used book sale at the library.  Try to buy a used copy for less than $10.  BTW a thesaurus is an essential tool for grant writing.

Free Classes!

Our regional library has a number of services, including free online classes through Universal Class.  One of the librarians told me about these free courses when we still taught at the library.  There are a tremendous number of classes available, some offering continuing education credit.  It was tough to dig through the library’s website to locate Universal Class.  Instead, ask your librarian if they off free, online courses through Universal Class or a similar app.  Be sure to check the content.  Hillsdale College offers free, college-level courses.  A young friend took four classes, one about C.S. Lewis’ writings.  Each course has between 9-14, 45 minute lectures and several quizzes.  While there are plenty of free, college classes; the trick is finding high quality programs.

Khan Academy: Free and Cheap SAT Prep

 Khan Academy has SAT Practice Lesson Plans from College Board, Reading, Writing, and Language Lessons and Math Lessons designed for teachers to teach an SAT prep course.  Additionally, Khan Academy has free SAT practice exercises.  If your teen is planning to take the SAT, consider Up Your Score. This guide has test-taking tips.  Any edition is fine, especially for the math section of the SAT.  Older editions are about $5.  Up Your Score is written by kids who have achieved perfect scores on the SAT, very good test takers.  The section about ‘how to guess’ is worth the price of the book.

Cheap and Easy Study Guides

  My Biology Co-op class creates and uses loads of study guides.  Biology is rife with vocabulary.  Let me share a few ideas we use.  Here and here are traditional study guides, questions, key concepts, and vocabulary terms.  Another tool is concept maps.  Often I put key terms on to index cards and have the kids create a map.

You can make free concepts maps with IHMC software, Google Docs, and Google’s Jamboard.  

My kids often make graphics.  Basically, the kids may use any image, sketch, notes, concept map they desire.  Anything on the poster or graphic may be used during the test.  The teens research and study as they make their guides.  It’s been an effective tool to help kids achieve a deeper quality of understanding.

For these graphics, the kids do not earn a grade until I decide they have sufficient details, images, and notes to be successful on the test.  Often, I’ll ask kids to add a concept map with titles or draw the stages of mitosis.  I might ask a student to explain verbally their image and its significance.  BTW this method is slow.  Kids resist revisions or annotations.  By ‘resist’ I mean there is great wailing and gnashing of teeth.  But once a kid can show me they understand DNA transcription and translation, the subsequent test is usually a breeze.  (I insist they revise essay tests, too.  You can imagine how popular that is.)  

Many home-school families use lapbooks  or Cornell Notes as study tools.  The point is to try different study guides to see which tool works for your child.  Start with concept maps; most kids find them useful.

Visit the Library!

 Most of my home-schooling friends visit the local library regularly.  I bet your family does, too.  Are you taking advantage of all their resources?  Our local library system, Central Rappahannock Regional Library (CRRL) has 14 locations.  The local branch is a one mile round trip; the library has free copies!  CRRL offers a host of resources, such as the Library of things: knitting kit, Spike Ball, and a home radon detector, we borrowed for Science Camp.  CRRL offers MakerLab Badges for a 3D printer, sewing machine, and a laser cutter.  (I was ‘badged’ for the 3D printer; it was like watching paint dry.)  Our Co-op used to meet at the library for classes.   Taxaide and United Way offer free tax preparation at the library.  There are lawyers from Legal Aid who volunteer at the library, too.  Most branches host monthly book sales.  I have young friends in Alaska.  I send them a huge stash of books and DVDs.  My husband and I have met with the locally elected officials at the library.  (The officials didn’t really listen to us—but we did meet.)  Before going remote during  COVID, our HOA met monthly at the library.  We’ve taken part is Fabulous Fridays, which often have a science theme.  I’ve barely scratched the surface.  Our library offers  ‘Make and Take’ activity bags I pick up for friends too busy to stop at the library.  There are game nights, book clubs, and opportunities to read with a dog.  Here’s the CRRL’s latest magazine.  Show it to your local librarian.  What does your library offer?