{"id":1589,"date":"2011-01-13T12:27:29","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T19:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/?p=1589"},"modified":"2011-01-18T14:23:39","modified_gmt":"2011-01-18T21:23:39","slug":"old-school-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/?p=1589","title":{"rendered":"Old School Fun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leina loves writing. \u00a0She loves stories. \u00a0She loves check-lists. \u00a0She loves creating work sheets for her sister. \u00a0She loves making charts of the weather or her feelings or her toys. \u00a0She loves to write. \u00a0However, \u00a0I have discovered that as much as Leina loves to write, she hates being forced into it. \u00a0If asked to write 4 sentences for a homework assignment, she will moan and groan and flail her body about for hours. \u00a0If left alone to do as she pleases, she can pump out a twelve page, self-bound book with illustrations in under 20 minutes. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Why! \u00a0Is it so horrible to have some direction?<\/p>\n

Apparently, yes. \u00a0Yes it is.<\/p>\n

So I’ve been looking for ways to sneak in writing lessons without her knowing they are “lessons”. \u00a0Luckily for me (or unluckily for Leina depending how you look at it), I am very sneaky. \u00a0Some would even go so far as to call me devious. \u00a0But I think that’s a bit much really. \u00a0One valuable ally I recently discovered in my quest for fun writing activities is the book\u00a0 “The Write State: A Guide to Nurturing Writing at Every Stage, From Scribbling to Forming Letters and Writing Stories” by Jennifer Hallissy.<\/a> I must say, this is a fabulously fun book. \u00a0All of the writing activities are presented at multiple levels from brand new to holding a pencil tots to serious kid authors and everything in between. \u00a0And these are not “writing topics” \u00a0Oh no! \u00a0That would be too obvious. \u00a0These assignments are cleverly cloaked in the form of games. \u00a0Leina doesn’t stand a chance. \u00a0Hee hee hee.<\/p>\n

Last night, I pulled out the book and devised my first \u00a0sneak writing attack. \u00a0It was old school fun to me but totally new and novel to her. \u00a0Say hello to your old friend, the fortune teller….<\/p>\n

\"\"

Pick a Color<\/p><\/div>\n

You remember these, right? \u00a0You pick a color and then open and close the paper puppet as you spell out the word picked. \u00a0How sneaky is that?!?! \u00a0You can make it harder by merely coloring in the top square thereby forcing the unwitting child to spell the color from memory. \u00a0Memory people! \u00a0Think of the\u00a0possibilities! \u00a0Forget colors, how about putting spelling test word on there? \u00a0Your kid could be learning without even noticing it! \u00a0The mind boggles, I tell you.<\/p>\n

Inside, I used letters as the second tier. \u00a0I made sure to pick a bunch way at the end of the alphabet which makes my kids have to recite the letters in order over and over. \u00a0 Oh… I love it! \u00a0And to top it off, I made sure my “fortune” was more that just Yes or No. \u00a0You can bet I stuffed as many words as possible under each flap!<\/p>\n

\"\"

The Truth Revealed!<\/p><\/div>\n

Both girls adored this little paper finger fun. \u00a0They loved asking the questions and also telling the fortune. \u00a0 I plan on folding up a blank one of these and leaving it in Leina’s room today. \u00a0I can hardly wait to see what she comes up with on her own.<\/p>\n

There are several other ideas in this book I may just try. \u00a0There are blank “coupons” in the back just dying for a child to fill out. \u00a0A recipe for invisible ink. \u00a0A Morse code cypher. \u00a0I wish I had found this book earlier as there are many ideas for kids who are working on drawing letters and learning A-B-Cs. \u00a0Sadly, those days are behind us. \u00a0Sniff. \u00a0 But I think this is a book worth taking a peek at if you are looking for inventive ways to engage early writers. \u00a0You can check out her blog<\/a> for more of her ideas too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leina loves writing. \u00a0She loves stories. \u00a0She loves check-lists. \u00a0She loves creating work sheets for her sister. \u00a0She loves making charts of the weather or her feelings or her toys. \u00a0She loves to write. \u00a0However, \u00a0I have discovered that as much as Leina loves to write, she hates being forced into it. \u00a0If asked to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Kqhb-pD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1589"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1596,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions\/1596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}