by Donna | Dec 17, 2013
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| RAISE a toast! Use an object with RAISE….toast is the object. |
Sit and rise have I’s–and lie does too.
“Coz these are things that I, all by myself, can do.
Set, raise, and lay are words that you choose
When each one has an object after it to use.
I like to start with the simplest Wacky Word pair—RAISE AND RISE–though I have often thought sit/set was the easiest pair because all of the set forms are the same. However, raise and rise are less often misspoken or mis-written, so I have changed my thoughts on this.
Remember these RISE and RAISE tips:
- Rise has an I—and I alone can do it (it is not done TO something else).
- I RISE early.
- Yesterday I ROSE early.*
- Before that I had RISEN early.
*Just think I RISE early, and Rose ROSE early…
- RISE means to head upward—anybody or anything can rise, as long as it does it by itself (i.e. it is NOT RAISED)
- The sun ROSE early…all by itself.
- I RISE before dawn (not really!).
- They are RISING up in protest.
- She has RISEN from that position one time.
- They are RISING in honor of the king.
- We have to wait for the bread to RISE.
- RAISE does not have an I (first)—it is done TO something.
- RAISE must have an object following it—something that it is being RAISED.
- RAISE the flag..
- Did he RAISE a toast?
- They will not RAISE the drawbridge today.
- She had some definite opinions to RAISE at the meeting.
- The kids RAISED a raucous to get attention.
- We RAISED our voices in protest.
- How much money did we RAISE?
- RAISE is the same base word for all of its tenses: RAISE, RAISE, RAISED, RAISING. That is why I recommend teaching this Wacky Word pair first (of the three), along with the fact that people do not usually say, “I rose my glass for a toast,” so it is more familiar, thus making it easier to learn (going from the known to the unknown, the familiar to the unfamiliar).
Okay…the tenses for the pair:
1, RISE
a. Base form: RISE—Today I RISE early. (Remember—no object; early is an adverb here, not an object.
b. Past simple: ROSE—Yesterday I ROSE early..
b. Past participle: RISEN—Before that, I had RISEN early.
d. Third person singular: RISES—He RISES early.
e. Present participle/gerund: RISING—I was RISING early.
2. RAISE
- Base form: RAISE—Today I RAISE my voice in the meeting. (Object—voice)
- Past simple: RAISED—Yesterday I RAISED my voice in the meeting.
- Past participle: RAISED—Before that I HAD RAISED my voice in the meeting.
- Third person singular: RAISES—She RAISES her voice in the meeting.
- Present participle/gerund: RAISING—I am RAISING my voice in the meeting.
by Donna | Oct 30, 2013
Besides the aforementioned “taking dictation” for a young writer (he dictates to you what he wants to write and you do the penning {or keying} for him), some simple organizational strategies can get the second through fifth grader off to a good writing start.
Here are three ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES that we use in our textbooks. All three of these have the added advantage of really digging right in to the concept that a “paragraph is a unit of thought,” a crucial skill for all writers to develop.
(more…)
by Donna | Sep 13, 2013
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| image from wordmr. |
If you have a newer edition of CQLA, you likely have weekly quizzes called “Think Fast Grammar Quiz.” When we created these, we originally thought that parents would use the Grammar Cards (available in Level B and C books and in the Teacher’s Guide) to grade their students’ quizzes.
Then we began teaching/testing the editions that contain these quizzes and discovered that it wasn’t as easy as we had previously thought to just use the Grammar Cards to check the quizzes–and to help your student categorize and study the grammar words.
So we created the document below to be used both as an Answer Key as well as a study guide for the Think Fast Grammar Quiz. It will be in a future edition of the Teacher’s Guide, and when our new website is done this fall, it will be available there as well. In the meantime, we are emailing the document to anyone who calls or emails us asking for it–and we are putting it here at the blog in the hopes that word will get out and parents will find it.
We use it to grade our testing students’ quizzes, but we also use it in the following way:
1. We have the student fill in as much of each part of the quiz as he or she can—then highlight the line in which he left off on his own. Then we have him look in the AK to find more and finish filling in the lines with the ones from the AK. This shows us what he already knows and what he had to look up, but it also helps him to learn more of them by writing them out as he looks them up in the AK.
2. We also assign portions of the AK for homework. For example, we will have all students study the section in the AK that has opposite prepositions or prepositions that begin with B, etc. This makes the AK into a sort of Study Guide for the student and has really helped them learn the words in categories as opposed to long lists of them.
Please share this post with fellow CQLA users so that we can get the word out that there is a lengthy, detailed, helpful Answer Key for the Think Fast Grammar Quiz! 😉
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9s1gDz0XKhwVW9YcDRpSHpHZU0/edit?usp=sharing
by Donna | Sep 12, 2013
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| image helpformothers
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Today I would like to leave you some tips for Independent Work Lists–especially for older students (junior high through high school). These will be in no true order–just some things that I want to re-emphasize from the younger ages as well as things that pertain only to olders.
So here we go:
1. Consider the document or chart that works best for your age child now. Most kids in junior high and high school no longer want cutsie charts. Once you decide you want a genuine paper document, then you have to decide how you want it filled in:
a. As he goes, he lists what he does each day, sort of a daily school journal.
b. You write in a planner each week for him for the following week (page number, number of pages, lesso number, etc.).
c. You have a standard daily Independent Work List that you create in your scheduling program or Excel—that you can customize when something changes, etc. You print this off, put it on a clip board, and have him highlight or mark off as he does things each day.
2. Consider if you are going to make his Independent Work List for him completely or if you will have his input. We liked to choose our high schoolers materials, schedules, lists, etc., with them, so that they have some input in the process–and to help model for them/teach them how to organize, prioritize, etc.
3. Still use some of the elements from the earlier suggestions (for younger kids) that are universal, such as:
a. School is your child’s occupation. It is what he should be about during the day.
b. Put the daily tasks in sections according to time of day or importance–and also in order according to when they should be done.
c. Do your part to be sure that charts are updated, printed, and ready. I know from personal experience that if we are laxed in this–they become laxed real quick!
d. Have a system that works for you every day. Have his list on a clip board that he carries with him/keeps in his school area. Have him highlight as he does things. Have him leave it on your desk when he is done, etc.
e. Develop a “no exceptions” approach to daily independent work. A student doesn’t go to basketball, girls group, youth group, etc., until his daily independent work list is done.
4. Have blanks on the chart to add in any work from outside classes, music lessons, Bible quizzing, etc.
5. Put things that are not dailies where ever they go. This was always a little bit difficult for me. Do twice weeklies go on Tuesday and Thursday (but Thursday is our lesson and errand day…). Do three times weeklies always go M-W-F, even though Wednesday is our “cottage class day” and extras do not get done on that day. This might take a while to get in the groove, but it is worth it to tweak things and make it work.
6. For junior high kids, consider that you might need smaller chunks (maybe two math sessions at 30 minutes a day, etc.). Again, you know your student and your family situation, so do whatever works best for you.
7. Consider if you want this Independent Work List to be his total chart/list for all aspects of his day at older ages:
a. Do you want to put his devotions, music practice, and outside work on there too?
b. Do you want it to contain meetings/tutoring sessions with you?
c. Do you want it to also be his chore list?
There are some definite advantages to a junior high or high schooler having his day right in front of him in one spread sheet. However, this can also get overwhelming to some kids.
Feel free to ask questions here on FB about the Independent Work Lists–I will try to answer them. I can’t imagine not having homeschooled without our three daily task lists: (1) Morning routines; (2) Chore charts; (3) Independent Work Lists!
by Donna | Sep 12, 2013
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| image clker.com |
Once school starts and the textbooks have been previewed, you can help your students get into good homework habits by doing their homework with them for a few weeks.
Here are some tips along those lines:
1. Taking the textbook preview further
There are a number of ways that you can take the previewing of textbooks that I discussed yesterday even further with your children for more comprehension of the material:
a. Do his first few assignments out of the book with him, pointing out the things again that you observed in your first preview. This will help him see that those things are not just good things to know, but also helpful for completely homework quicker and more accurately.
b. Help him prepare for his first test with his textbook and you by his side. Show him how he can use the glossary, sidebars, table of contents, etc. to quickly fill in his study guide or quickly determine what the most important aspects of the chapter are in order to prepare for a test.
c. As you are previewing a text (for the first time or an additional time), use a large sticky note to record what you find. Write the title of the text at the top, then make notes about what it contains as far as study and homework helps. Stick this in the front of his textbook and help him refer to it when he is doing homework or test preparation. You could even record a plus and minus system, such as
+++ means something is going to be really helpful—a +++ beside the Table of Contents, for instance
+ beside a word he writes in the front of his book tells him that this might be somewhat helpful—Example: +Some graphs
– No study questions at end of chapter—again, he can make a list in the front of his book (on a large sticky note), etc.
d. Help him “label” different sections of his book with sticky notes along the edges. For example, you could put a yellow one at the beginning of each chapter and a pink one on the page that has definitions for that chapter, etc.
2. Prepare your younger student for textbooks by using user-friendly non-fiction books
Maybe you are not in the textbook stage with your kids; however, you can begin preparing them for those all important study skills that I described yesterday with quality non-fiction books. If kids at ages five, six, eight, and ten, learn to navigate around Dorling Kindersley, Eyewitness, and Usborne books (among many others), they will be heads and shoulders above other children who have only been exposed to fictional stories (more on the benefits of fiction later!).
These outstanding non-fiction books have literally hundreds of topics that interest kids, but they are so colorful and alluring, you do not feel like you are “teaching” at all. Additionally, they have many aspects that your child’s future textbooks will also have: glossaries, Tables of Contents, sidebars, graphs, pictures, inserts, definitions, bold font, italics, etc. Reading these to and with your children when they are younger will provide a natural step into textbooks later on.
Note: We teach our students (in our home, our cottage classes, and in our language arts books) a simple memory device for remembering fiction and non-fiction:
Fiction=fake (both begin with f)
Non-fiction=not fake (both begin with nf)
