The Letter "f" Is Redeemed By A Five Year Old.

"This is how the letter "f" reminds us of Christmas.  First it looks like a staff.  Then, when you draw this it is a shepherd.  And that's how the letter "f" reminds us of Christmas."

-The Anchor

What We Can Learn From Bad Writing

The day my son wrote a whole paragraph without shedding one tear was a special day.  Over the past week he had brainstormed his topic, written his draft, proofread it, revised it, and the tears he cried through it all equaled the number of his pencil strokes.  

You see, my son hates writing.  Actually, I should say it this way:  My son HATES writing!  

Sure, there have been glimpses of hope, like the time he saw me writing out my prayers in a journal and asked if he could try it too.  I think he wrote something like, “Jesus, I love you,” then he walked away quickly wondering why in the world he thought that might be a fun thing to do in the first place.  

Then there is always the larger-than-life-sized drawings he makes of submarines, castles, and ancient battle scenes on huge pieces of paper taped together.  The little stick figures are always saying something like, “Help!” or “Run!” but those little stick men never wax eloquent.  

The fits he throws over an assignment often take longer than the assignment itself. There has been so much groaning, stomping of feet, whining, and tears.  Oh the tears!   

So imagine my surprise the day he wrote a whole final draft without one complaint or protest.  I had braced myself for a meltdown, but it never came.  Instead, I just sat there asking the Lord for diligence on my son’s behalf, praising God for His work in my son’s life.  There was a lot of tapping of the pencil, and stretching, and looking around, but for the first time I saw determination on his face instead of despair.  

When he finally punctuated the last sentence he literally jumped out of his chair and yelled, “I can’t believe I finished!  I did it!”  There was so much hooting and hollering going on, that his little brother joined in the celebration.  “Good job, brother!” he said giving him a big squeeze.  “I can’t believe I wrote that whole thing,” he kept saying.  I praised Him and told him what a great job he did, but honestly it didn’t matter, because he already knew it.  He felt it deep. 

Let’s get one thing straight; his paragraph was atrocious.  Some parts didn’t make any sense, there were errors, sentences were incomplete.  It was horribly written, but that’s what made it a success.  It was written!  That one badly written paragraph is one of my son’s biggest learning accomplishments of the whole school year.  

He learned lessons that far outweigh the importance of spelling or punctuation.  He learned the amazing feeling that comes from not shrinking from a difficult task.  He learned that in life there will be many unpleasant things that we must do and that it is better to just put your nose to the grindstone and get it done with a good attitude.   He learned that there is value in hard work!  

These are the kinds of lessons that I get most excited about.  The kinds that can’t be written into a curriculum.  The kinds that have to be experienced, not taught.  

My son may never come to enjoy writing, or maybe he will.  But that doesn’t really matter to me as long as he learns that whatever he does, he ought to do it heartily as unto the Lord rather than for men.  That one important lesson applies to whatever skill set or line of work he chooses to pursue.  We all can learn from my son's bad writing.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.  
Colossians 3:23

Spelling Straws

Why do we need to learn how to spell?

I have a son who really dislikes writing, so he despises practicing spelling by writing the words repeatedly-- and forget about writing the words in a sentence, or any other kind of writing activity for that matter.  On one particularly hard day when his assignment was to write out the words he missed five times each, his attitude went downhill quickly so I sent him to his room.  I prayed for a way I could help him.  The answer came in the form of straws!  

This pack of blue bendy straws that I got for free a few years ago have come in handy for all sorts of crafts and other learning activities, and on this day I found yet another use for them.

I told my son he could use the straws to practice his words.  He actually had fun figuring out how to cut and bend the straws to make them form the letters.  Best of all, he learned how to spell the words and I didn't have to put up with a poor attitude or crying.  Win win and mission accomplished!

"Spelling Straws" are now a favorite way to practice spelling words.  

Here are some other ideas for reluctant writers to practice their spelling words:

1.  www.spellingcity.com  This site has several free spelling games

2.  any sketch app:  somehow it's better to write words with your finger on an i-pad

3.  write in sand

4.  play hangman

5.  use a white board or magna doodle:  again, somehow much more fun than pencil and paper

6.  write for sprinkles

Do you have any other ideas?  Leave a comment, I would love to hear them...

"Rabbit! I'm Expecting You!" A Poem inspired by Emily Dickinson

Today we read a poem by Emily Dickinson called "Bee! I'm Expecting You!  It's a letter written to a bee from a fly.  The Free One decided to write a poem like it, only his letter was from a lion to a rabbit.  

Rabbit!  I'm Expecting You!

by The Free One

Rabbit!  I’m expecting you!

The carrots are grown.

The turnips are ripe.

The lettuce is green.

All the other rabbits are here 

waiting for you.

All the ducks are swimming 

at the pond, a party’s going on.

It’s spring, come on.

Have fun.  I’m not lying.

Trust me.

Your friend, Lion.

Fun Fact:  Did you know that no one knew that Emily Dickinson wrote poems?  After she died, her sister found her poems in a dresser drawer.

Can You Feel the Writing?

I have used a small sand box for several years to teach my children to form letters and numbers.  I stopped using this for my seven year old because I figured that he already knew them all and he just needed to practice writing.  Well, I was wrong.  He still needs to "get the feel" of how to write the right way!  

(The Anchor is a lefty)
 Writing in sand is multi-sensory which gives your brain more ways to remember and connect information.  You can feel, see, and even hear the letters forming.  With a pencil, there is an inanimate object between your hand and the actual letter you are writing.  While it is important for kids to master writing with a utensil, they need to first understand what the letter should look like.  

(Pretending to be asleep and snoring, "ZZzzzz")
As I have written in past posts, my seven year old can hardly tell the difference between any letter or number that is written correctly, backwards, or even upside down.  So I've brought out the sand box for him again.  I have him draw "trouble" letters and numbers over, and over, and over again.  For him, it's fun, and much easier than trying to wield a pen or pencil.  He's also getting a sense of how the letter "feels" which is making it a lot easier for him to transfer that information to a paper and pencil.  This year I have a small Tupperware with a thin layer of colored sand for each child.  I usually color code my boys so The Free One gets blue and The Anchor gets green.  You can buy the sand at almost any craft store, or online at www.orientaltrading.com.  You can even get glow in the dark sand from them.  Now how fun would that be?  

Will Write For Sprinkles. (Motivation for handwriting practice)

My husband was very impressed with how our first grader wrote his numbers from 0-100 on the first day of school.  "Wow, that's pretty impressive."  "How does he do that?"  He asked.

Let me set the record straight.  Mr. Incredible was not impressed that our son could write the numbers.  He could do that last year.  What was so impressive was how he wrote the numbers.  Two was flipped over and turned upside down, and the number seven more closely resembled the letter "L".  Eights laid lazily on their sides and nines could be mistaken for "p"s, "d"s, or "b"s depending on which box you looked at.  Almost every number was flipped, inverted, or  contorted in one way or another.  It really was quite impressive!

My jaw had almost dropped when I saw what a mess he had made of the numbers.  It was so overwhelming that I didn't even bother correcting him.  I simply said, "Good Job!  You got all the numbers in the right order."  My next two thoughts were:  "This year we are tackling handwriting with ferocity,"  and "could my son be dyslexic?"  (I'm going to leave that topic for later because I'm still pondering and researching that train of thought.)

I started assigning quite a bit of writing and monitored him closely so that every letter was formed perfectly.  Needless to say after a few of days of this he got frustrated!  I got frustrated!  It was just plain frustrating!

I know it's not an attention issue, because he can sit for more than an hour drawing and writing stories about his pictures.  It's not about coordination; he's quite adept at making the pencil do what he wants it to do.  I believe that for him it is just plain boring!  It's hard to concentrate on something you don't want to do.  He stretches, he taps his pencil, he doodles, he looks around and sings.  He does everything else except for complete his writing assignment.  When tears were produced, I felt sorry for him.  I needed to do something to make it easier for him.

What could I do to help him stay on task?

First, I pared the down the assignments a little so as to be less intimidating.  Next, I added this ingredient that helped tremendously:  SPRINKLES!   He'll do almost anything for sweets so I decided to put one little tiny sugar sprinkle before each writing line and I told him he could eat them as he finished the lines.  He loved it!  He still doesn't like to practice writing, but the tiny rewards help him get through the assignment without tears or complaints.  And best of all, his handwriting is improving.  I don't know how many sprinkles it's going to take, but I'll keep setting out one teensy confection next to each word or line as long as he continues to write for sprinkles.

Note:  I try not to bribe my children with candy very often, but sometimes I'm willing to do whatever it takes.  By the way, the sprinkles are so tiny that they don't even amount to one piece of candy so I don't feel bad at all about using them.  If you don't like that I reward my child with refined sugar and artificial colors, don't mention it : )