Mrs. Hardman
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5 Games for Your Upcoming Family Road Trip to Promote Language Skills
Did you grow up playing family games in the car as you traveled long distances to spend the holidays with family or friends? If you are traveling over the next few days, bond together with a few road trip games that promote language skills! Your passengers will be entertained and learning at the same time, so it's a win-win! What other games would you add to this list?
Upgraded I-Spy: Don't just limit your descriptions to colors. Instead, focus on building strong adjectives for description. Use adjectives to describe texture, shape, quality, or size. Example: I spy with my little eye, something that looks weathered.
Pass the Story: Begin to tell a story for one minute. After your time, pass the story to the next person in the car who will pick up the story to continue. Participants continue passing the story until it ends. Parents may choose to help guide the structure with a beginning, middle, and end.
Two Truths and a Lie: Family members take turns posing three sentences in a random order of which two are true and one is not. Family members try to guess which statement is not true.
Would You Rather: Family members take turns posing questions asking family members to make a choice between two scenarios. To broaden language skills, family members must make a choice and support their answer with why they made the choice they did.
Expand the Sentence: Start with a basic sentence containing a subject and a verb. This sentence stem is passed around the car with each family member adding an additional word or words. Example: Emily sat. Sweet Emily sat. Sweet Emily sat on the airplane. Sweet Emily sat on the red and white airplane. Sweet Emily sat on a gigantic red and white airplane. Sweet Emily sat on a giant red and white airplane headed to Rome....
Adventures in Writing
I'm thrilled to announce I'll be teaching a new class beginning in January focusing on the IEW Curriculum: Adventures in Writing. This class is a 30-week course offered for 3-5th grade, but identified primarily 3rwith third graders in mind. Will we work through seven of the nine IEW units at this level.
Although I will mainly be splitting the class between fall and spring, this year I will be offering back-to-back sessions beginning in January and April to finish up mid-July. I can't wait to meet your kids and focus on writing skills as they learn throughout an adventure theme!
Practicing Similes with Calendar Pictures
Calendar pictures can provide lots of inspiration for the budding writer. Instead of recycling them at the end of this calendar year, rip out the pictures and use them to practice some figurative language with a focus on similes. Have writers look at the picture and create as many similes as they can. Since similes compare two unlike objects using the words "like" or "as", students can creatively play with combinations. For example, with a picture of a jellyfish from an animal calendar, students may come up with a variety of ideas: The jellyfish glows like the moon. The tentacles are as stringy as spaghetti noodles. The tentacles were as fine as hair. It's top is as round as a melon.
Welcome to a New School Year!
I'm excited to get started on this new school year! We have a lot to cover over the next two semesters and will cover everything from note-taking to essay writing! Take a look at my "Meet the Teacher" graphic. Is there anything we have in common?
Please take some time to introduce yourself and your children to me. I always appreciate messages on Outschool and posts to the classroom as I strive to form a positive partnership with families.
Which Writing Class is Right for my Child this School Year?
The Institute for Excellence in Writing has a valuable resource on its we site called the "Pathway Chart". If your family is considering either thematic writing classes or video-based writing classes, the diagram offers multiple directions that may be taken throughout elementary, middle, and high school.