Elsa’s Writing Game

 

Elsa’s Writing Game

6-19-14

By Elsa and Emily

(Note from Emily: Elsa and I played this “Silent Writing Game” more last fall, but it was fun to do it again today. In the game, you talk with one another through writing, usually for a period of 15 minutes or so. You are not allowed to talk, although often we have a hard time following this rule strictly! Elsa surprised me this time by switching to Spanish in mid-game. And then instead of switching back to English, she used drawings to answer my question. I have tried to provide a few extra pictures of some of the things we were writing about. )

This is the pentagonol prism that we made:  we left one of the sides open because Elsa wanted it to be a little house for a little creature as well:

 

“Que compraste en la tienda de tu escuela esta mañana?”  Means, “What did you buy at the store at your school this morning?”

Elsa had bought a little tiny paint set with two cards to paint.  She went right to work painting them when she got home, and then was inspired to make her own!  She is now asking if she can get her own youtube account when she is 10 so that she can teach others how to paint too!

And last, a picture of our “Mo”:

Elsa’s Strange Sentences

Elsa’s Strange Sentences

By Emily and Elsa

6-10-14

Homeschooling the girls this past year in Camoapa has been interesting and challenging! Especially since they have been in regular school here, which limits our time for additional homeschooling on the side.   One of our agreements early one was that they would practice their writing skills and creativity by contributing to our blog, more or less, on a weekly basis. Lately, this has been more of a challenge for Elsa, so I have been looking for more interesting ways to get her engaged. A very helpful book that we brought along with us is called Games for Writing, by Peggy Kaye.   One game that we recently enjoyed is called “Strange Sentences”. The idea is to use the appeal of nonsense and silliness to engage the child into learning about sentence structure. It also spurs the imagination!!

In order to play, you need one playing die, and a Strange Sentences chart, like this one. We created our own Strange Sentences chart from real life events that have happened here in Camoapa. Each sentence in the chart is broken down in to the subject, action, where, where, and the final punctuation mark. The object is to make new sentences by rolling the die each time to choose the subject, the action, the where, when and punctuation. The result is a “strange sentence” that makes little or no sense and can result in many giggles and fun!

See the results of our game below. We played twice and came up with a few strange sentences each time. We hope this gives you a taste of our daily life during the past few weeks, but also of some of the fun we have been having!