WFMW - How We Learn Spelling

I know most homeschool families don't do spelling as its own subject; spelling words are learned incidentally, as they come up in other subjects. But we here at the Purple Brick Road do a hybrid - public school Aug-May & homeschool June-Aug. Since we a have a child who doesn't learn best through public school methods, we spend our summers catching up on what was missed during the school year (and we also focus on subjects that public school doesn't really teach, such as faith/religion and patriotism).

Thus, some of our SHS (Summer [Home]School curriculum is dictated by the district's benchmarks. This is a long way of explaining that we have to focus on spelling as an individual subject because there are lists to be mastered.

With a multi-sensory learner, this means that we don't just copy, copy copy word after word onto a paper. We take a... well, a multi-sensory approach. Most of our strategies can be used for anything that needs to be memorized:

 On the first day of the week, Tyson copies the list (usually 12 words) onto the sliding glass doors with a dry erase marker. Did you know this wipes right off, like it would on a white-board? This puts it on a vertical plane, thus altering the visual perception.

On the second day of the week, he copies each word onto an old cookie sheet in shaving cream. After he has copied it, he reads the word, spells it out loud, and says it again ~ spelling bee style. This incorporates tactile and auditory learning.

On the third day, we build the words. Sometimes we use magnets (and those trusty cookie sheets or the metal front door). Other times we use these fun foam stickers (which I got at Target - 100piece packs in the $1 bins!). We will either stand at the table or put the letters on one counter & the cookie sheet (or cardboard/paper) on another, so he has to walk between them. This engages tactile & kinetic (movement) learning (and also gives him a break from the horrible, terrible handwriting part).

On the fourth day, we play a game where I call out the words, and he jumps, steps, hops, etc. from one letter to the next in order to spell the words. If he gets stuck, I help him sound out the word, or I will sometimes write it on the white board for him. This engages auditory, tactile and kinetic learning. It also acts as a practice test since he's no longer copying the words, and it helps with his working memory because the letters are out of order. He has to remember which letters he's already done.

The last day of the week is spelling test day. I read the words, give it in a sentence and he writes them on a white board. Paper and pencil is by far our least favorite tools for learning, so we use them only when necessary (like for journaling.)

Of course, his little brother gets to participate, too, so he's already learning some of his letters. But mostly, he just does it for the fun of it:

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Crazy County

I love clipboards. I never met a clipboard I didn't have a use for. Or a binder, for that matter, but we'll get into that bit of crazy another day.

The truth is, I love office supplies. I'm almost as happy to be in an Office Max as I am to be in a yarn or craft store. (Almost. Nothing truly beats the smell of wool in a small, cramped yarn store...)

I'm not sure why, except to say that I love the potential that is found in almost every standard type of office supply. They all have the potential to organize. The bring order from chaos. And since most of the time my life (and my house) tend to lean more to the chaos side of the force, this bringing order thing appeals to me.

The clipboard thing started about 11 years ago when I was doing my music therapy clinical internship. It lasted 6 months, and my clinical training director was a very organized woman. She organized her life on a legal pad attached to a clipboard. She had her schedule, her to-do lists, important notes... all of it right there. I loved the idea and got my own clipboard.

Over the years, my system has gone through many transformations. There was the brief period of the Day Runner. There was the year or so that I used a 5x7 clipboard in an effort to save space. There were the two serious attempts to get rid of paper and keep every thing in my phone. There was the steno book phase that ended badly. But always I came back to the clipboard. I'm currently using a clipboard with a Daily Docket sheet (which I customized for my life).

Do try not to notice that this is Tuesday's list. I tend to only keep a docket for Mon-Fri. This week, I got a lot done on Tuesday so I took a picture of that day.

I might have gone a little crazy with the clipboards for summer school, too. We have four of them.

These are Tyson's. Riley has a set that are very similar. The small orange one is the token economy. Ty gets a sticker for every lesson he gets through without whining, arguing or refusing. (Motivation, attitude and work ethic are a big part of our summer this year.) After he fills up the chart, he gets to trade it in for a reinforcer. (Which could be an item from the prize box, a family trip to the ice cream shop, extra time to play video games, etc.)

This is the plan for what we will work on this week. (Obviously, there is a lot of trying to figure out what Ty picked up this year and what he didn't... so I know what he still needs to learn on.) I went ahead and filled in the full week, knowing that not all of it will get done exactly as it says. We'll go to the library one day, which will take the place of something on the list for Monday. We'll also probably go to the park one day. But this way I have a plan for each subject, and we'll just make up what we missed later in the week or next week. The items in yellow are the assignments Ty will need to complete mostly on his own. (Again, work ethic is a big focus this year.) I can't decide if I should make him finish every assignment each day, or make him finish all for the week by Friday...

I know. I'm trying so hard to be organized that I might be crossing a line & maybe setting a foot into the Land of Crazy with this. "Oh, no," you say, "It's good to have a plan. You're just being organized. God likes a little organization."

Really? Would you think it was just a little over the Crazy County line if I told you that Riley (the two year old) also has a full sized clipboard with tasks like "shape sorter," "sort colors," and "picture vocabulary" on it? With the same subject headings...

Welcome to Crazy County. Population 1.

On Your Mark...

I've been working all week to get things ready for the official start of our Summer {Home}School v2.0.

Here's a little peek into just a few of the things I did this week:

The schedule is done & posted:

Last year we did a "routine" that did not include times. I was worried that having times would stress me out because, although I definitely need a structure to my day, I can sort of become a slave to what the clock says. I know. It sounds strange, but I am a woman of extremes. I tend to hover either near the "parked on the couch in my pajamas all day" end of life... or at the "anal retentive, type A control freak" end of life. So this year I've added times, and I am taking them as a suggestion for myself. I understand that very few days will actually follow this schedule and that when things interfere it in no way means that I am an irresponsible mess. I know this. I do. Really.

You'll notice that all of the academic subjects are in white. That is so that they can be moved by Tyson. One of the things I taught him this year is how to "eat the frog." Some days he wants to get the worst stuff done first (i.e. eat the frog) and some days he prefers to put it off until later. Either way, it helps him to have a little control over his day.

I have a few spare subjects on the other side of the door:

Also, I reworked the chore lists. Riley now has a list of his own, and they are both posted on the fridge daily:

The lists are in top loading page protectors so that they can use dry erase markers to mark each task off the list when it's done.

This is an example of one of Riley's lists. (We have a different one for each day and I change them in the evenings.) I drew pictures to help him figure out what he's supposed to do. (I'm not sure why I put pictures on Tyson's list since he can read now. Maybe out of habit? Maybe to make it a little more fun? Or maybe out of some subconscious need for him to retain a little of his littleness...)

I also put together Tyson's summer reading folder. He has so many papers for this subject that this one needed its own folder. Since we won't be doing a lot of worksheets this summer, I don't think he'll have a folder for any other subject.

In this folder he has:

• Summer Reading Club Log for our local public library
• Our own summer reading log to track book titles, minutes, etc.
• Summer Reading Log for school
• Recommended books for summer reading (from school)

Tyson's school encourages reading over the summer. The thing I thought was funny is that they give the kids a prize if they read ten books over summer vacation (chapter books count for three). Summer vacation is 12 weeks long. It doesn't seem like they are setting the expectations very high. We read almost every day... at least 4-6 days a week. (Even when we are camping.) And that's just the days that Tyson reads to us! That doesn't count all the books I read aloud to him. Needless to say, I'm confident he's going to earn the prize from his second grade teacher.

So, do you read a lot in the summer? How do you encourage your kids to read?