Educating Locally. Learning Communally. Living Freely.

Great Resources: Spelling Power

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Monday, February 24, 2014

Amazon


Every now and then we run across a book or a website that is particularly helpful.  Maybe it presents a subject in a new or interesting way.  Maybe, like last month’s post on Squeaky Clean Reviews, it puts a lot of great information at our fingertips.  And we want to share them with you!
  For this installment of Great Resources, I want to share a great book that my mother-in-law gave me: Spelling Power by Beverly L. Adams-Gordon.
  As much as I love to read, teaching grammar and spelling are not my strong suits (I’m much better at math where everything is spelled out in black and white and I know not only how the concepts work, but why they work as well).  Until now (third grade), I hadn’t had a good spelling program in place.  Our kindergarten and first grade curriculum didn’t seem to have much of a spelling component, and although we have used the Explode the Code series with some success (and continue to do so), it was clear from my daughter’s writing that we needed to do something about her spelling.  Enter Spelling Power.
  “It is estimated that there are at least 250 spellings for the 44 basic English sounds which exist for each letter.”  Ms. Adams-Gordon points out in her introduction.  Ah ha!  Now I know why we have been struggling.  Sure, short vowel words are easy even long vowel words with a silent e are not so bad, but to as we discovered in our writing assignment on Wednesday, words with ea in the middle can say the long /ē/ sound as in beach or the short /ĕ/ sound as in breath.   
  Spelling Power takes each sound and provides a rule for each of the various spellings along with examples of each.  Then the student has an opportunity to spell various words using each of the options for that sound. For example one rule is: “Words that say /är/ are usually spelled ar as in car.”  This is then followed by a list of fifteen or so words for the parent to read to the student.   The student spells from the given list of words for five minutes, and then studies any missed words using the 10 step study process designed to help students look at words more effectively and remember their spelling.  The remaining five minutes or so of spelling are to be spent on one of the activities in the back of the book to provide extra spelling practice with that day’s words. 
  The words chosen for the book are taken from extensive lists of the words children, teenagers and adults commonly use and misspell.  They are then arranged into ten levels of increasing difficulty.  The level A words are those most commonly used and/or misspelled by younger children (approximately 2nd grade level) while the words in level J are those most commonly used and/or misspelled by high school students.
  At the beginning of the program, the student is tested to determine where to start in the book.  This ensures that they do not waste time going over lots of words that they know.  It also ensures that they will not be spelling so many unfamiliar words that they get discouraged.
  There is a long section at the beginning of the book with all the information you need to get started.  The author explains her method – which she developed for her own daughter who struggled with spelling – in great detail, and provides the answers to why it words.  She also provides tips for how to help a student understand why a word is spelled a certain way.
  One thing my daughter and I both like about Spelling Power is that she does not have to study words that she knows over and over again.  If she spells a word correctly we go on to the next word.  She only has to study and retest words she misspelled.  We usually end up studying a few words from each set – enough to assure me that she does need the practice, but not enough to discourage my daughter. 
  We are nearly done with level B, and I have noticed a great improvement in my daughter’s spelling.  She also has a lot more confidence in her writing assignments; it is no longer a struggle to pull every word from her brain and get it on paper.   
  The Spelling  Power book is a little expensive ($64.95 on Amazon), but the book is designed to be used over several years.  The exercise pages are meant to be copied, so the book can also be used for more than one student.  The book is also available from Life Long Learning Resources in Lyman, if you want to check it out before you buy, you can see Spelling Power at their store.
  If you have a struggling speller or are just looking for something different, I encourage you to check out this book.

Interview with Jennifer Freitag

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Monday, February 17, 2014

  My guest today is Jennifer Freitag.  Jennifer is an author and a homeschool graduate.
  Jennifer Freitag writes fantasy and historical fiction from her home in South Carolina, where she lives with her husband and two cats. She loves reading, especially obscure old works; she loves her family, and she loves tea. THE SHADOW THINGS, a historical fiction, is her debut novel. If you want to learn more about her, check out her website. (www.jenniferfreitag.com)

 From the back of the book:  The Legions have left the province of Britain and the Western Roman Empire has dissolved into chaos. With the world plunged into darkness, paganism and superstition are as rampant as ever. In the Down country of southern Britain, young Indi has grown up knowing nothing more than his gods of horses and thunder; so when a man from across the sea comes preaching a single God slain on a cross, Indi must choose between his gods or the one God and face the consequences of his decision.

You can pick up a copy of The Shadow Things on Amazon or straight from Jennifer's blog.



1.  Tell us a little about your homeschool experience.  What did you like most about being homeschooled?  What did you like least?
Looking back on it, I appreciate being homeschooled mostly because it brought down the dividing wall between life and learning.  Everyday existence included learning English, history, mathematics, etc., and so the mindset of learning was being built into me from an early age, before I even realized what was happening.  I didn’t always like my subjects—what student does!—but as I grew older and more mature I began to appreciate that I was being taught how to learn, and that is something which has stood me in good stead having graduated and begun to work in the “real” world.
2   You started writing while you were still in school.  What made you decide to sit down and write a book?
I didn’t decide, I just did it!  Because my family, bolstered by the curriculum my mother used, was so book-based, I was always reading stories, whether for school or for fun, and I wanted to make stories of my own and write them down.  So I did, and that expression of creativity was fostered in my home atmosphere so that I was able to hone it to the point of being ready to become a published author.
3.  How did your parents influence or support your writing?  Did your mom count your writing as Composition?
On occasion my mother counted my writing as composition, but let’s be honest: my creative writing endeavours at an early age were not always high-grade material.  I do remember having a clash with my mother over my English textbook: I had written a passage a certain way and defended my position by swearing that C.S. Lewis had used the same type of grammatical composition as I used, but my mother wanted me to use the grammatical rules from my textbook.  She won, of course.
In my early years of writing, my family’s support was more a matter of gentle tolerance.  I didn’t show people my writing, so I never got any criticism, but I was allowed to sit for hours at my computer churning out prose and the most ridiculous plots (if plots they could be called), and I was able to gain a degree of confidence that has carried me through many years of maturing and refining so that now I am able to show people my writing and gain a more personal influence and support from them. 
4.  Do you think being homeschooled has affected how you write and what you write?
No doubt it has.  It is no secret that I am an extremely sensitive person: if I had been put in a public school I would probably not be nearly as confident and self-assured as I am today.  That confidence and self-assurance strongly colours the personalities of my characters.  In being homeschooled, I was able to be myself.  Children are tender, impressionable creatures: without the proper nurturing and the right degree of sheltering in their early years while they get their feet under them, they can lose countless opportunities that might have been opened to them otherwise.  I am very glad I was homeschooled for this very reason.
5.  You choose the unusual path of not attending college and obtaining an English or Journalism degree.  Why?  Do you feel that you missed out on anything by not attending college.
There are two reasons why I chose not to attend college, both of which are very personal.  First of all, I didn’t need it.  Every good author I have read (including C.S. Lewis) has learned grammar and then paid only cursory homage to it.  Having an English degree does not an excellent author make.  I am not at all interested in journalism: it would have been a waste of time and money for me.  Second, as much as I deeply appreciate being homeschooled because of the firm foundation it laid for me, I really hate school.  Having been taught how to learn, and to have the fortitude to do so, I am much happier pursuing my own instruction at my leisure when I need it, where I need it, with no respect to deadlines and term papers.  It has been my experience that, nine times out of ten, creative writing courses in school have been the kiss of death for a student’s interest in writing.
6.  In The Shadow Things you center on the upheaval to Indi's world caused by the arrival of Christianity.  What was your inspiration?
After all these years, with such a flow of stories under the bridge, it is hard to remember clearly the embryonic state of my debut novel.  Church history was always one of my favourite subjects in school, partly because I simply love history, and partly because I love Christianity.  I have always had a fascination with Roman Britain, in which time period The Shadow Things takes place: it was a natural setting for the story I wanted to tell through Indi’s life.
7.  For those of us who don't write, tell us a little about what you do.  Do you research?  Do you write from beginning to end or jump from scene to scene?
Yes, I do lots of research: but I tend to hide my sources and I don’t always tell people what I am using as material.  That’s a key play in the art of a writer.  When I start a new story, I almost always begin writing with an opening scene, but I have typically already been plotting it for months, toying with scenes, sometimes even jotting down dialogue or skeletons of scenes as they come to my mind. 
8.   If you could give homeschooling parents one piece of advice, maybe parents with budding authors in particular, what would it be?
If your child exhibits any talent in any particular area, encourage it!  Being creative and loving one’s work goes far to conquer the grinding humdrum of the corporate machine and should be cultivated as much as possible.  Parents want productive, happy children: encourage them to excellence in the things they love!

The Goal of Education

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Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Pinterest
When we sit down to do school with our kids each day, what is it that we hope to accomplish?  What are we leading (or pushing) our kids forward to?  College?  Good grades, high test scores and scholarship money?  A higher paying job?
  We are told by everyone – parents, grandparents, the media, the president, countless academic studies – that attending college is the way to ensure a brighter future for our children.  It is the new American dream. 
  While there is a lot of evidence that college is a good choice for many people, there are other things to be considered.  In 2012 unpaid college debt passed credit card debt nationally, and people are having a harder time paying if off.   Many students who go to college either fail to graduate with a degree or are unable to find work in their field of study after graduation.  There are also many students who are either not prepared for college or who are not interested in spending another four years in the classroom.  Some students would be much better off if they received training that equipped them to enter the workforce soon after high school.
  With those considerations in mind, a college and scholarship oriented education seems a little short-sighted.  With my own children I am trying to take a broader view and prepare them for whatever they may do in the future – whether it be college or a job or marriage.  The following quote embodies much of my own educational philosophy.

“The end of learning is to repair the ruin of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love Him, to imitate Him, to be like Him.”                   - John Milton


   It is true that much of the ruin wrought on mankind at the Fall was spiritual.  Man went from being alive to God to dead in his trespasses and sins, a ruin which only Christ can repair.  But I believe that on top of that spiritual ruin, man lost more than that in the Fall.
  Adam was created in the image of God.  Man’s nature was made to reflect who God is – His justice, His love, His mercy, His creativity.  All those attributes of God that we love to study and praise show up to a lesser degree and in a broken form in His sinful creation.  We feel a strong sense of justice and injustice because we are created in the image of God.  We feel pity and mercy because we are created in the image of God.  We desire to create – music, art, literature - because we were created in His image. 
  Just think how much more like God man must have been before the Fall, before his mind was clouded by sin.  His justice was more sure and right, his mercy unmixed with selfish motive, his creativity unhindered by the curse of hard labor.  What a joy it must have been for Adam to live and work in the Garden of Eden.
  I think Milton must have been thinking of this when he penned the quote above.  Education is not just about learning to read so you can read the Bible and become a Christian.  It is much more than that.  It is learning to think about the world as God thinks about it, learning to see creation for the marvelous work that it is, learning to see man for who he is and pity his fallen state.  It is about learning to see the order of the world around us and to trace the mysterious hand of God through history.  And in all this we must stand back and marvel at our great God, to love Him more and more, and as far as possible to order our minds to be more like Him.
  It is this ordering of the mind that I wish to instill in my children through their education.  I want to instill in them the discipline and love of study.  I want them to learn not only to read and write and do math, but to learn how to think about and study and analyze the world as well.  My goal is to equip them to do well at whatever their hands find to do. 
 "I am merely striving to think God's thoughts after him."   
                               - Johannes Kepler

Beating Cabin Fever

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Thursday, February 6, 2014


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January was an unusually cold month thanks to a sweeping polar vortex, and if Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction on Sunday is any indication, we are in for a few more weeks of cold weather before things warm up.  It is usually about this time of year, with all the fall holidays behind us, and Easter and spring break in the distant future that I begin to feel a bit of cabin fever.  Cooped up indoors with busy kids for weeks is enough to drive anyone crazy, so here are some suggestions for beating cabin fever.
  • Plan an indoor field trip.  February is not the best time to visit the zoo or go to the park, but it is a great time for a lot of the activities listed below in the Field Trips and Activities section.  Plan a visit to the Children’s Museum or try making a craft at Color Clay Cafe.  For other options check to see what’s going on at your local library.  Most libraries have activities and story times for various age groups, and they are generally free.
  • Plant a garden.  Even if you don’t garden (I have a notoriously black thumb), browsing through the pages of a flower and vegetable catalog will bring you hints of summer to come.  And when you are done, cut out the pictures and plant a garden on paper.  You can request catalogs from Park Seed, Farmer’s Seed, Breck’s, and many others.
  • Get moving indoors.  Put on some classical music and practice your ballet or make an obstacle course from laundry baskets and pillows.  Anything that gets the whole family moving to shake off that “stuck indoors” feeling.
  • Make a blanket tent and have a picnic lunch.  This is one of my kids’ favorite activities – getting to eat lunch on the living room floor is a real treat.
  • Make a map.  When we get packages that have paper filling (like the large brown sheets that are often in Amazon boxes), I flatten them out and save them.  We like to use them to draw roads and houses on, and then drive toy cars all over our new city.
  • Rearrange the furniture.  Sometimes when you are staring at the same four walls day after day, giving the room a fresh look can bring a feeling of freshness.  I like the feeling of freshness and order that even a simple task like rearranging the books on the shelf brings.
  • Plan a special family dinner and get the kids to help.  We did this last week to celebrate a family milestone and it was so much fun.  We cooked a special meal, made a new dessert, lit candles on the table and dressed up for dinner.  I was surprised at how enthusiastic the kids were about getting dressed up for a special meal.
  • Take advantage of the warm days.  South Carolina is blessed with a few warm days mixed in with the cold.  I try to keep our “grub” shoes by the back door so we can go out on warm days even when the ground is muddy.

I’m sure there are some ways to beat cabin fever – these are just some of our favorites.  What about you?  How do you beat cabin fever?
 

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