CHRONiCLES FROM THE MAGiC SCHOOL HOUSE: CREATiVE WRiTING

"I hear, and I know. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand."

~ Confucius

Greetings!!  It has been many moons since I have been here at this space.  I have to say I quite missed it.  I have been in a far away Internet challenged land.  My sweet husband gifted me a bit of technology this Christmas and I am back into the 21 century.  Well almost.  Still working on a few other projects but getting closer!!  Will show a bit of this progress on a later post.  I thought I'd share a creative writing project from the Magic School House today.

We used Emily Martin's cleaver Black Apple Paper Doll Primer: Activities and Amusements for the Curious Paper Artist as the inspiration for our assignment.  This book is truly magical. She provides templates in the back for you to create your own dolls, complete with clothing, accessories, and sets.

I started by writing a list of words on the board.

Then I asked Violet to choose three words, and create a character using the words as a springboard. 

She chose smart, creative, and loving. 

After selecting the words, I instructed Violet to write a short paragraph describing where her person lived , and what they liked to do.  Then, make a list of things her character likes and a separate list of dislikes.

As a finishing touch she could draw a picture of her imagined character. Violet liked this idea and decided that after school she would make a paper doll of her character.

It made a nice project for a Friday afternoon!

Also, I recently dug out my copy of Games for Learning by Peggy Kaye.  I can't say enough good things about her books.  The are choc-o-block full of lovely fun ways to practice the fundamentals.  Violet is needing some extra practice with her math facts and the games in the book provide the repetition and practice without the monotony of flash cards.  We played an activity from this book called Math War.  It is played just like the old school version except each player lays down two cards and adds them together.  The player with the highest sum  gets to keep the cards.  This game has the tendency to be rather long.  She suggests playing it 10 minutes or so at a time.  Then separating each players cards with a rubber band so that you can pick it up when you have time again.  We had fun with this one, it alleviated that glazed over "I'm bored look" that I get when we use the flash cards.  I can't say that I blame her!

Have a wonderful weekend!