Oh how I wish for the days of past with all the fun preschool games, you remember playing with Play~doh, stacking blocks, just being able to read a funny story to your little one! I loved being able to answer any questions that they had without looking it up on the internet or sending out an S.O.S to my homeschool email loop. ( Note~ I didn't homeschool them that early but what parent doesn't constantly play and teach their kids at this age. AKA-homeschooling them without even knowing it! Always wonder why I didn't make that connection earlier?)
Fast forward the clock to my now 3rd and 8th graders which always leaves me worrying about their writing skills but also the dreaded of subjects for me~ Grammar! (well if you have any of my other posts you know I also dread SPELLING, but that's a post for many other days:) I have found that for my boys, I don't necessarily worry about the grammar in their writing assignments. Since it is challenging enough for us to sit down and write anything! Unless you count the comic strips that we are writing right now, which of course I do!
I more often find online grammar games and resources to teach the basic concepts. I usually try to have at least two or more different sites for the boys to go to when we are studying a new grammar concept. The boys do the online resources before we actually go over it together, in my experience it always gives them a sense of knowing the material better if I can give it to them in a visual way first. An added bonus for us, is that it also raises their self confidence that they know something before I go over it. Then we worry about the workbooks pages or whatever it is that we are doing for that day. SO for my family this is what works for us, but I am just wondering, What works for you?
Fast forward the clock to my now 3rd and 8th graders which always leaves me worrying about their writing skills but also the dreaded of subjects for me~ Grammar! (well if you have any of my other posts you know I also dread SPELLING, but that's a post for many other days:) I have found that for my boys, I don't necessarily worry about the grammar in their writing assignments. Since it is challenging enough for us to sit down and write anything! Unless you count the comic strips that we are writing right now, which of course I do!
I more often find online grammar games and resources to teach the basic concepts. I usually try to have at least two or more different sites for the boys to go to when we are studying a new grammar concept. The boys do the online resources before we actually go over it together, in my experience it always gives them a sense of knowing the material better if I can give it to them in a visual way first. An added bonus for us, is that it also raises their self confidence that they know something before I go over it. Then we worry about the workbooks pages or whatever it is that we are doing for that day. SO for my family this is what works for us, but I am just wondering, What works for you?
We are using some Grammarlogues (http://www.grammarlogues.com/) this year for formal grammar instruction. But most of our grammar comes from discussing my son's writing. He writes a good bit, so analyzing his writing doesn't put him off writing at all.
ReplyDeleteAnd I know it is out of vogue in the school system, but I still like using sentence diagramming to teach grammar. When I have him diagram a sentence he has written that isn't really a sentence (grammatically speaking), he eventually works out the grammar point I'm trying to teach him. I think it sticks better than me just saying "you need a semicolon" or whatever.