by Donna | Aug 7, 2017
The only thing more common in student writing than a run-on sentence is probably the run-on paragraph. Yep…run and run and run and run. And it isn’t the sweet student’s fault! (I have spent twenty years trying to help amazing kids not to be stressed about grammar—I would never blame them! 🙂 ) Paragraph breaking is often not taught well. (I know I wasn’t taught it—I can remember eye-ball measuring my text to see when I should start a new paragraph when I was in school!) This is why we emphasize deciding on what each paragraph will contain ahead of time (and why when kids in our classes do not write their Topic of Paragraph on the outlining space provided for that, they get docked one LETTER grade per missing paragraph topic line; it’s that important!).
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by Donna | Mar 18, 2017
![[Video] Writing With Adjectives](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3936/33479806366_6e3ca61aea_z.jpg "[Video] Writing With Adjectives")
Students writing stories this week? Parents/teachers helping kids with stories this week?
Follow this “describing tip” we use with our student to help with the descriptions in your writing:
“Only use an adjective that will cause your reader to have a different picture in his mind than he would have without the adjective.”
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by Donna | Feb 18, 2017
There are hard ways to learn things. And there are easy ways to learn things. Teaching is in my blood. Love for students runs deep within me.
Those two things combined make me want to ALWAYS teach students the easy way to learn things.
Life is hard already. Let’s make grammar as easy as we possibly can. And for sure, let’s teach things that students actually need and use in real writing.
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by Donna | Nov 16, 2016
Welcome to another Wondering Wednesday blog post! I was recently asked to share my top scheduling and organizing tips with a group of homeschooling moms. I tried to be clever and create 32 Tips From 32 Years of Homeschooling….and it quickly turned into like fifty. And I, of course, did not have time for fifty (or even thirty-two!).
![[Video] 32 Organizing and Scheduling Tips From 32 Years of Homeschooling](https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5723/22835522108_38ba8dc894_z.jpg "[Video] 32 Organizing and Scheduling Tips From 32 Years of Homeschooling")
But here it is….let me know what homeschooling, parenting, language arts, writing, Plexus, and marriage questions you have….I’ll make you a *short* Wondering Wednesday video or podcast. 🙂
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by Donna | Jul 6, 2016
![[Video] How To Use the Checklist Challenge](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7312/27519363264_a5d55fd633_z.jpg "[Video] How To Use the Checklist Challenge")
This week’s Wondering Wednesday is a video in which I teach how to use my Checklist Challenge. Whether you are a CI curriculum user (Character Quality Language Arts, Meaningful Composition, or Write On!) or not, if you are a teacher who longs to merge grammar with writing (as it should be!), this video will give you tips and ideas that you can begin incorporating immediately.
The store description of the Checklist Challenge Packet is given below. This text will give you some ideas on what you can expect to learn in this week’s Wondering Wednesday!
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