The Phantom Tollbooth

Recently we started a parent/child book club based on the format in Deconstructing Penguins mentioned in the previous post. Towards the end of Deconstructing Penguins, the Lawrence’s give a list of a few great books to start your book club with. The first one on the list was The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster.
This lively humorous children’s book [...]

How to Deconstruct a Penguin

I recently came across this book Deconstructing  Penguins by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone. It’s basically explaining how you can establish a book club for kids and their parents. The Goldstone’s conducted their own parent/child book club for years with such great success, that they decided to put the detais in a book for the rest of us.
Up [...]

Proofread Carefully to See if You Any Words Out.

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. – Gene Fowler
The last few weeks of our homeschool have been focused on how to write a formal essay. We follow a loose Classical/Charlotte Mason homeschool philosophy, and are transitioning from copywork and dictation exercises to [...]

Frustrated with Grammar?

Do all those grammar workbooks seem far too laborious? Are you frustrated with the lack of flow between grammar and writing? Wondering how to connect the two? I know I was.
Last week I attended the BCHEC Homeschool conference in Kelowna. Come September, my children will be entering grades 4 and 6. Naturally, I found myself searching the curriculum [...]

Writing Resources

Last weekend we attended the 2008 Pacific Festival of the Book – which, by the way was a great success. This was a great place to take the kiddos and expose them to not only, new and exciting literature, but also to give them an opportunity to meet the authors themselves. There were indeed some [...]

Do Learning Styles Affect Spelling?

I have two daughters – one who’s mainly a visual learner and one who’s mainly an auditory learner. Oddly enough, they are both good spellers. I often wondered at this, since auditory learners typically find spelling rather challenging when relying solely on visual material. This caused me to think back and ask myself what we [...]

Meet the Author!

Last week we had the privilege of attending a writing camp presented by Lyn Hancock author of Tobasco the Saucy Racoon. What a delight! If you ever have the chance of meeting this dynamic, enthusiastic writer then I can guarantee you will not be disappointed.
Lyn, who used to be a school teacher, was wonderful with [...]

Poetry with a Purpose

It’s time for the Weekly Unplugged Project from Mom Unplugged. This week the focus was on Haiku. Though we didn’t create any Haiku, we did create some very meaningful poetry. This week being Veterans Week, the girls created poetry together with artwork as an expression of appreciation for our Veterans who served our country. Their [...]

Can Grammar be fun?

Okay, so fun doesn’t come to mind when you think of grammar. For most folks grammar topped right up there on the “I’d rather be doing anything else right now except…”list. Soooo, you might want to take a look at these great books. No, they are not work books, not text books, they are not [...]