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I know that title is a lot cheerier than most people are when they think of Summer School. However, I want to help you look at Summer School in a little more positive light. It CAN be an opportunity to catch up on missed skills, reinforce what was just learned, or prep for the upcoming school year. It CAN be an opportunity to focus on one area of academics instead of several. It CAN be an opportunity to grow your student in an area of interest. It CAN be a great opportunity!

My teaching load is way lessened in the summer (especially this summer since I am also starting to teach Intermittent Fasting online!), but I still have a day or two in which I offer remediation classes and private tutoring. (They are never called remediation classes outside of the sign up!)

Additionally, Ray is offering a few private slots middle school/high school math and science areas. For example, he is adding one student starting in April who is behind on chemistry and wants to finish the course strong before starting school in the fall (i.e. not carrying it over). He also has some SAT/ACT math prep students in the spring and summer. His degree is in accounting. (He was a CPA before he went into a plant setting and got involved in production and materials.) However, his real “claim to fame” in teaching has been teaching speech, debate, economics, biology, chemistry, physics, and 5th-12th grade math to our own kids as well as hundreds of kids in our cottage classes.

So…..if you are considering summer school and want a little help, we’d love to help you! We are offering two 5-week sessions—students can do one or both with one non-paid miss per session (due to vacations and busy-ness of summer).

Here is what I am offering so far and what times Ray has available for private kids. Please note that if I have three or more students interested, I can add an online class or face-to-face class to my schedule pretty easily, so check out my Meaningful Composition samples if you are considering a quick summer writing class for your students!

TWO SUMMER SESSIONS

First Session: Tuesday, June 5, 12, 19, 26, and July 3

Second Session: Tuesday, July 10, 17, 24, 31, and August 7

Ray’s Availability: Any week day or week night in SW Fort Wayne; some Bluffton/Ossian openings; Saturday mornings in SW FW

Donna’s Private Availability: Monday morning; Tuesday all day and all evening; some Thursday openings

Private Costs: Private tutoring for Ray and/or Donna is $30 for a 55 minute hour for once a week; $25 for a 55 minute hour for students who come twice a week (or one session with Donna and one with Ray). Students may miss one out of every session during the summer sessions without penalty. More than one miss per session requires a make up session or a payment. (These are summer guidelines only.) We always prefer to make up sessions whenever possible.

Donna’s Online or Face-to-Face Summer Classes—Tuesdays—(Minimum student count must be met)

• Complete Language Arts remediation for 4th-8th grade students who have not written three or more paragraph reports and essays—Tuesdays 12:00 SW Fort Wayne (We will use CQLA Level A for this class; one month samples are available at the store.) CQLA Summer Cost: $15 per week for a minimum of four weeks each session (preferably all five weeks); plus $10 per each five week session for their book.

• High School Writing/Remediation—grades 7th-12th who have not written four paragraphs or more of all types of writing with quotes, persuasion, and more (Jump Start book)—Tuesdays 1:30-2:45 (This is also excellent preparation for jumping into CQLA or Meaningful Composition classes in the fall!) Writing Summer Cost: $10 per week for a minimum of four weeks each session (preferably all five weeks); plus $15 per each five week session for their book.

• You Choose! –I would love to add an online class or a different in person class to my line up this summer—check out the MC books at the store to choose a book for your student or group, and I will plan around you! (Note that this year’s in-person writing classes by Donna will be High School Essay in the first semester and Four Research Reports second semester; Jump Start is a wonderful way to get your upper level high schoolers ready for these two classes. Or we could do a creative writing class this summer if I had enough interest!) Writing Summer Cost: $10 per week for a minimum of four weeks each session (preferably all five weeks); plus $15 per each five week session for their book.

Call or text today for more information or to sign up! Decisions as to which classes will run will be made by May 15th and will be based on class enrollment. Donna at 260-433-4365.

The post Welcome to Summer School appeared first on Character Ink.

I also remember the teacher giving my paper back to me and telling me to divide it into paragraphs. What I don’t remember is any lessons on paragraphs. I think those would have come in handy! 🙂

When new students come to my writing classes, the first “writing” problem they encounter is that of paragraph breaks. And I would expect no less. Paragraph breaking is difficult. We tell them that when they change topics, they should change paragraphs—but the entire paper is about the same topic! We tell them that each paragraph should be a unit of thought—but the whole paper feels like a unit of thought to them!

Poor kids!

I love kids too much to leave them stuck in that continuous cycle of “I don’t know how to break my paper up into paragraphs!”

And the way I have gotten around that in my classes and all seventy of my books is to teach students to commit ahead of time as to what each paragraph will contain. Then they label each outlining space with each paragraph’s topic. Easy peasy. This approach works. (Check out two week samples of Meaningful Composition here to see how I use this outlining technique in all of my lessons.)

I have been enjoying Facebook Live and have gotten a lot of good feedback on my teaching videos. Thank-you for your encouragement!

So to demonstrate how to teach Paragraph Division, I created a video of me teaching this concept to some amazing fourth through sixth grade students. We had a lot of fun—and it clearly demonstrates how committing to each paragraph’s topic ahead of time really works!

The post Dividing Paragraphs appeared first on Character Ink.

I am slowly getting the videos up that go with the samples at the store. Each MC book has two weeks of completely free lessons (in their entirely..not bits and pieces). And each book will eventually have a video that explains that book’s contents and the two free sample weeks.

That brings me to this post! I would like to introduce you to one of my elementary Meaningful Composition books, 2 II: Keep It Up! Keep in mind that the four 2nd and 3rd grade books are more complete language arts than they are strictly composition/writing. Thus, this second semester MC book is a complete language arts program for one semester for your second grade level writer/language arts student.

Check out the description from the store:

“Your student will learn valuable grammar, usage, word, and prewriting skills while working his way through this sixteen week treasure. Each lesson is laid out in a similar way—beginning with a meaningful passage of material to learn to write from, Editor Duty sentences to correct, Wacky Words (homophones and confusing words), language lessons, prewriting exercises, Checklist Challenge how to lessons, dictation, outlining, and much more.”….read more.

Print off the two week sample to “try before you buy” here.

AND…..watch the video explaining the two week sample:

These books are the perfect way to bring incremental, directed writing (no guess work, no vagueness) to your students during the next semester. Try it! You’ll like it!

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In this Wondering Wednesday video, Donna Reish (author of seventy curriculum books) teaches parents how to teach propositions with meaning. Using her downloadable e-book, the Preposition Practice Packet, Donna explains the importance of understanding what prepositions do in order to memorize many of the over 200 prepositions out there.

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Aboard, about, above. Along, among, around….

Whether your kids sing them, recite them, chant them, rap them, or write them…prepositions are important.

I learned them in chant-like form when I was in school. However, I never knew WHY I needed to learn them.

My newest downloadable product will teach kids prepositions—in a way that focuses on the WHY, that is, what prepositions really do!

Our kids (and we!) need to learn prepositions for a few important reasons:

(1) They are the beginning of prepositional phrases

(2) Prepositional phrases can be mentally eliminated from a sentence in order to get to the bare bones of the sentence…since the sentence’s main subject and main verb are not usually found in prepositional phrases

(3) Prepositional phrases are good to use as openers—especially lengthy ones—as they vary sentence structure and rhythm.

I’m all about songs, jingles, rhymes, recitation, and mnemonics for learning parts of speech (and really anything).

However, when prepositions are learned in songs or recitations, the real reasons for prepositions are overlooked. (Not to mention that they learn about thirty of the over two hundred prepositions….not enough memorized preps to adequately recognize them in sentences and use them for sentence openers!)

Click here to learn more and to download the Preposition Practice Packet!

The post [Video] How To Use the Preposition Practice Packet appeared first on Character Ink.

Aboard, about, above. Along, among, around….

Whether your kids sing them, recite them, chant them, rap them, or write them…prepositions are important.

I learned them in chant-like form when I was in school. However, I never knew WHY I needed to learn them.

My newest downloadable product will teach kids prepositions—in a way that focuses on the WHY, that is, what prepositions really do!

Before you get lost in the product description, click on the video to see me teaching about this amazing product:

Our kids (and we!) need to learn prepositions for a few important reasons:

(1) They are the beginning of prepositional phrases

(2) Prepositional phrases can be mentally eliminated from a sentence in order to get to the bare bones of the sentence…since the sentence’s main subject and main verb are not usually found in prepositional phrases

(3) Prepositional phrases are good to use as openers—especially lengthy ones—as they vary sentence structure and rhythm.

I’m all about songs, jingles, rhymes, recitation, and mnemonics for learning parts of speech (and really anything).

However, when prepositions are learned in songs or recitations, the real reasons for prepositions are overlooked. (Not to mention that they learn about thirty of the over two hundred prepositions….not enough memorized preps to adequately recognize them in sentences and use them for sentence openers!)

That is, students can chant a long list of words, but they do not know how to use them.

Enter my Preposition Practice Packet! I use tricks. I use check sentences. I even use toys (“Preposition Practice Pals”!) to teach prepositions (and practice them).

But all of the methods within this Preposition Practice Packet have one thing in common: they focus on the PURPOSE of the preposition—to show spatial relationships or time.

This 80 page practice packet has fifteen lessons (with student assignments) introducing prepositions in a systematic order: initial letter, with the practice pal, as opposites, as synonyms, as compound words, and more.

When you use this packet, your student will learn prepositions by the boatload—but they will also learn them for their purpose.

Note: If you like the Preposition Practice Packet, you will love the Think Fast Grammar Quiz and Answer Key!

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In this Wondering Wednesday podcast episode, Donna Reish explains the various areas of language arts instruction for each grade level—what to focus on, what to continue with, and how to move through language arts grade-by-grade. She touches on the essentials of language arts in the areas of listening, phonics, reading, spelling, comprehension, writing, grammar, oral communication, literature, and penmanship.

Download the podcast notes here.

The post Podcast: Teaching Language Arts Across All Grades appeared first on Character Ink.

Fourth Grade: Teach students to outline before writing.

I know many students do not like outlining. And they are sure it is not needed. Trust me. It is.

I have had students who come back from college and bring me a paper to help them edit. When I mention that it seems a little “rambly,” the student sheepishly tells me that she didn’t have time to outline. And it shows. (She couldn’t have gotten away with that in my cottage classes as we take a grade on the outlining/prewriting step as well as any research steps that are needed for report writing!)

Outlining keeps a writer from rambling. It helps him get thoughts on paper in shortened form—while the ideas are flowing. He doesn’t have to interrupt the creative process with writing out full sentences or paragraphs. He can jot down notes quickly—thus, keeping up a little better with the mind than writing full sentences usually allows.

Outlining is the thinking/creating step. Writing is the style step. By learning to outline first, the student’s focus is on gathering data and organizing it in the order he wants it. He doesn’t have to do so many skills at one time—research (or think in creative situations), write notes, determine order/placement of material, write quality sentences, divide paragraphs, edit, etc.

There are myriad of outlining types to use with the fourth grade student. There is the Sentence-by-Sentence approach (what some materials call the Key Word Outline) over source material. There is the aforementioned Q & A outline (see Third Grade). There are templates to “fill in the blank.” There is, of course, formal outlining (which I like to teach gradually by using outlining cards with the eventual numerals and letters already written on the cards).

For young students, a fill in the blank outline might work at first. For story writing, I like to use a Directed Brainstorming outlining box in which each quad has the elements that the student needs to include in his story: character/setting, goals, obstacles, and resolution. There are outlining methods for each type of writing—and each outline is a stepping stone to a fourth grade student becoming an outstanding writer.

Note: Go to our store to see (and print/use) two week samples of my Meaningful Composition series. These samples have, for the most part, complete writing projects. Thus, you can try out many of the outlining methods that I have been describing in this series. Also, keep your eyes on my stores (Teachers Pay Teachers, CurrClick, Teacher’s Notebook, and the Character Ink Store) as I put up various writing project downloads that are in my longer books.

The post A Writing Tip for Every Year: Fourth Grade appeared first on Character Ink.

We are still in the elementary years of our Writing Tips for Every Grade. This week it is about grade four, which is a transitional year for a lot of students as they learn the skills that they will need for middle school writing. This tip has to do with outlining. While younger kids can often get buy rambling through a little paragraph (sweeties that they are!), this grade often requires longer projects, and the need for outlining increases. Read this article here…

The post Writing Tip for Fourth Grade appeared first on Character Ink.

I can remember learning about affect and effect in school–and being completely confused all of the time. Is that how you feel? Well, get ready to be relieved of your affect/effect phobia!

Generally speaking, you can count on Affect being a Verb and Effect being a Noun. So how does this help you?

That will not AFFECT the outcome–Verb meaning influence or alter

Her job did not AFFECT her college studies—Verb meaning influence or alter

What is the EFFECT of her test scores?–Noun meaning result

This will have no EFFECT on my performance—Noun meaning result

So…just remember RAVEN–and you will always use the proper AFFECT/EFFECT! Remember Affect is a VERB and Effect is a Noun.

Remember
Affect
Verb
Effect
Noun

Note: For you non-nemonic lovers, there is also another way to remember that effect is the noun. If you can remember that an, a, & the are noun markers, that is they mark the noun, telling you that a noun is coming soon. Some programs call these articles. Anyway, if you can remember that that thE is a noun marker then you can probably remember that thE ends with an E and Effect begins with an E: thE Effect.

Teacher Tip: Students often think that the word and, which is a coordinating conjunction, is a noun marker (or article parentheses). Therefore, I like to word the three neon markers in a different way so that the AN is not up against the coordinating conjunction AND. So try teaching the three noun markers with these two things in mind:

1. Order them in this way: and, a, and the. This will keep the AN and AND from being against each other, which makes students think that AND is the noun marker.

2. Also, if you write them on the board, or you are making your own worksheets (or in my case, writing my own English books), do not use the word AND at all in writing. Instead use the symbol: an, a, & the.

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