Publishing Non-Fiction

One of the features of the new Common Core Standards in English and Language Arts is the increased use of non-fiction in reading and writing. I have known for years that the vast majority of required reading as an adult is non-fiction. Including non-fiction in classroom reading has been on the increase for several years, at least in schools in which I have been involved. So including non-fiction reading and writing has been a given with Joy.

The books above are from a series published by Capstone Press. I chose them to be some of Joy's first non-fiction reading because they are interesting and filled with great pictures. There are more in the series, too! As we have read them, I realized they are very patterned from book to book. The picture to the right shows the second section of each book, which is always about the young. Once I realized the books were so patterned, I decided it would be a great non-fiction writing project to write one of our own books in the series!

 Joy, of course, chose to write about puffins. They are still the animal which catches her attention these days. Here is her first page on puffins. You can compare it to the first page of the book on ducks below.

It's easy to see the pattern of this first page, and it was easy for Joy to see it, too. As we wrote each page for the book on puffins, we read the corresponding page in each of the other books in the series. We discussed the patterns found: the information and the sentences. The structure really helped Joy to formulate her own thoughts

about puffins.

Joy has been learning to keyboard using Dance Mat Typing, a terrific online, free program with lots of interesting characters. The puffin book was the first writing project that I had Joy type for herself. She was able to do most of the writing herself. I also used the opportunity to teach her about spell check; she was able to proofread with some help.

In each of the books in the series, there is a pictorial time line of the animal from birth/hatching to adulthood. We made one, too, but couldn't get the graphics to work exactly the same. Joy learned a lot about graphic work on this page! You can see our version close-up below.

Another thing that Joy learned about in this project is finding and using pictures from the internet. We did not cite them; I was more interested in helping her learn how to search for images and manipulate them. We will being citations in first grade, I think.

All in all, this was a fun and interesting project for Joy. She loved her final product, which is now on her bookshelf as a book she can read! She reads to her daddy nightly as part of her "homework," and this is one of her favorite reads.

Biographies

One of the things that Joy and I have been up to in the past couple of months is reading biographies. There are tons of well-written youth biographies in our public library, and we are checking them out three or four at a time. I decided to do this when someone mentioned Abraham Lincoln, and Joy said, "Who's that?"

I have tried to choose biographies from different eras, fields of accomplishment, and types of people. We have read about Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Ben Franklin. We've also read about Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr, and Rosa Parks. I've read to Joy about Handel, Rembrandt, and Alexander Graham Bell.

After reading three or four biographies, I realized that we needed to put the people in historical perspective, so I created a GIANT time line.

I started by putting Joy's lifetime, my own, and Joy's dad's lifetime on the time line. I hoped this would give her a little perspective as we added others. She noted that the time line was a lot like our number line, and I pointed out that the numbers on our time line were 10 years apart (just like the red TENS on our number line).

As we added Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Joy exclaimed, "He didn't live very long!" This was proof to me that she truly understood what the time line represents. She was also impressed that both Mom and Dad were alive when Dr. King was alive.

I highlighted a section of the time line for the Civil War because so many of our biographies dealt with people who lived during it. As Abraham Lincoln was one of our first biographies, his lifeline isn't marked on our time line (yet). Joy is starting to understand that many of those living during the Civil War were greatly affected by it.

Joy is very interested in art and music, so we've included several people in each category. I started playing music or showing her pictures by the artists as we learned about them. She has since decided that she loves classical music! I catch her playing classical music on the iPad as often as her favorite Barbie movie soundtrack! A benefit of the biographies project.

This project has been so successful in introducing Joy to many people and eras that I think we'll continue it for the foreseeable future, even if she attends a public school. It's even been interesting to me to see the lifetimes of these people on the same time line! I have all kinds of questions that I'd never thought of before, like, "What did Mozart think about the American Revolution?"

I love learning, and I love the spark of interest I'm seeing in Joy as we learn about these people and their lives. I would recommend this project for any family!

On the Road

 I haven't written a blog post for quite some time. Things have been a little chaotic in our family. My husband and I each have a parent who is terminally ill, one of whom is currently in hospice care. Joy and I have spent many recent days in hospitals, rehab facilities, and at home (away from our home) with ailing grandparents.

Homeschooling is great for situations like this. Joy hasn't missed a day of school! We've had school in the car, in the hospital, and various other locations.

But we also have to adapt our usual lessons for the road. The pictures on the left show some of the many activities that just wouldn't work on a road trip!  Too many pieces, too much stuff to tote, or too messy.

One thing we did to make away-from-home school easier is purchase an iPad. We had talked about it before, but it really seemed to make sense in this situation. And it was a great decision!

 There are soooo many excellent educational apps available, mostly for free. And it was also a wonderful car-time occupier; Joy could listen to music, play games, or read books. I will share some of our favorite educational apps in another post some day soon.

 There are certainly some activities from our normal routine that travel well: Sluggy, the sight word puppet made most of the trips; Tell Tale, the storytelling game, was a hit, even in the car; and our number sense bracelets were easy to carry. We also use some Kumon workbooks occasionally. First, because Joy needs to have experience with written skill activities, and second, because she likes them! Yes, really. So those came along in the car.

I tried to purchase another workbook on one trip, but all I could find were "test prep" workbooks. For KINDERGARTEN??? Really!? It's another sign of just how test-crazy our educational system is right now. The Kumon workbooks are totally different; their sole goal is learning. They are set up for kids to learn a small bit of new information, use it repetitively so they internalize it, and then add another bit of new information. I definitely wouldn't use only Kumon (or any other type of) workbooks, but they are the best I've found.

 So, we've continued school and learning, even in the midst of much traveling and a bit of chaos. Joy seems to be doing okay, even though two of her grandparents are failing. I think being able to help take care of her grandmother has helped her process the upcoming loss.

I'm not sure what the near future holds for either of these dear parents/grandparents. We will continue to serve in any way we can (that is appropriate for an almost-6-yr-old), so their may be more road trip school days for us in the future! I'm so glad that we are able to teach/learn this way.