Category: Language Arts – Grammar Spelling Reading Writing Categories

Long A Words — Worksheet 0

Long A Words — Worksheet

Long a Words — Spelling Practice SentencesWe have gone over the long a words such as a (able, acorn) ai (sail, maid) a–e (cake, mate) ay (day) eigh (weigh, neighbor)ea (steak, break) ey (they) aigh (straight). This sheet uses these long a words in a sentence. They should be able to figure out the word by context, but if not you can tell them the word to write. Click herefor...

Writing a Novel — Elementary 0

Writing a Novel — Elementary

Last year my sister’s three homeschooled kids each wrote a novel. I hope to get a chance to read their work when we visit them. Her kids are 8, 11 and 13. Amazing! It’s not yet our season for writing things like that, but someone in one of the groups I visit shared this link for kids who plan to write their first novel.  Here is the elementary “Young Novelist”...

Reading Roundup:  Author, Patricia Polacco 0

Reading Roundup: Author, Patricia Polacco

 The past few weeks, we’ve been reading through many of Patricia Polacco’s books.  I know as an adult, I get fixated on one or two authors (Paullina Simons–The Bronze Horsemen series, Jodi Picoult, Philippa Gregory, Rick Riordan). And LD has his favorite series too reading through all the Magic Tree House books, Beast Quest series (he’s on number 36), Andrew Lost and the A-to-Z Mysteries. We have all really enjoyed...

Memory Work 0

Memory Work

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we started using First Language Lessons.  DD really, really loves the memory work. So much so, that we’ve added in some other poems from this poetry book to the left. It has cute, short poems just perfect in length and in subject matter for DD. She really likes the Ladybug by Joan Walsh Anglund and memorized it within a day or so:...

Reading Roundup – China 4

Reading Roundup – China

We are using the Five in a Row book list  and some recommended children’s authors to add some spice to our children’s literature readings. WOW! Have we had a wonderful time so far on this adventure! Here is our children’s literature book list, a collection of authors and titles we are making our way through (though I liberally add in my own books/findings as you see!). These books have a...

Reading Roundup — The Amazon Rainforest 4

Reading Roundup — The Amazon Rainforest

We are using the Five in a Row book list to add some spice to our children’s literature readings this summer and into the fall. We bought two of the FIAR curriculum guides (for vol. 2 and 3) and will use the other two lists as a reference to bring great books into the house. We also will be going through the children’s literature author’s list suggested by Lucy Calkins...

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Green Eggs and Ham Preschool Activity

I made this a while ago, but never got around to introducing it to ED.  It was a big hit the yesterday.  Then DD came over and wanted to play.  I had a number of extra eggs and ham without a letter on the reverse side, so they took turns trying to find the letter for their plate. If they got a blank egg or ham it was the other...

This and That–Language/Spelling 4

This and That–Language/Spelling

A few weeks ago we started using First Language Lessons. The kids — and DD (age 5) in particular — are enjoying it. We’ve memorized three poems and are enjoying the leisurely introduction to common and proper nouns. This curriculum suits us at this point. The lessons are in small bits (we spent about 10 minutes, but often do more than one lesson) and most importantly DD enjoys them a...

Free Book — Beacon Second Reader 4

Free Book — Beacon Second Reader

I used the Beacon Second Reader with LD a couple of years ago.  DD has been reading them aloud in the past few weeks.  When I downloaded them a couple of years ago, I printed it all out.  I got a Nook for my birthday, though, and decided to download the book right onto the Nook.  Neat!! Anyway, these stories are at the perfect (if not a bit easy) level...

Capitalization Rules and Practice Sheet (free) 0

Capitalization Rules and Practice Sheet (free)

The main focus of our language arts is always reading — both independently and aloud together. I really feel there’s no better way to increase your vocabulary, learn about the eloquence of language. We talk about what we read, we memorize poetry and all that.  But since we have some standardized testing coming up, we’re doing some more formal language arts review (thus all the worksheets).  A quick, straightforward sheet...

Punctuation Practice 2

Punctuation Practice

LD has been reviewing his punctuation and capitalization rules this past week or so.  Here’s a new sheet he did about our family holiday a year or so ago (or go to my downloads page).  The playground we went to was amazing!! The kids still talk about this playground. You probably won’t care that much about LD’s worksheet, but I bet some will be amazed by this public playground!  I’ll...

Language Worksheets 6

Language Worksheets

 I’ve made a few worksheets to go with our language and spelling lessons, but only just started writing them on google docs. I’ll post them in my Free Downloads area  if anyone is ever interested. They’re plain old worksheets, but this seems to work really well for my son to help review language rules with an absolute minimum of writing (which we do in other areas of our homeschool day)....