Playing With Words - Virtual Curriculum Fair

The 2013 Virtual Curriculum Fair is here!

Language Arts is my favorite subject to homeschool.  It's the one subject I usually over kill. It is easy to over do it since Language Arts encompasses so many things - reading, spelling, vocabulary, writing, poetry, grammar...... My top language arts activity is reading and carrying out a literature unit. 

My favorite literature guides are from Teacher Created Resources and Progeny Press.  I have used others, but I always wish I had used TCR or PP.  For me a good literature unit involves at least one fun art type project or cooking something.  I also love to use YouTube when possible, and if their is a movie version of the book it is the treat we get when we finish the book.

Here are the Units we have done in this past year:

Trumpet of the Swan
Charlotte's Web
The Cricket in Times Square
Frindle

Other books we have read this school year, but didn't do full fledged units on, were Stuart Little and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  We discussed the characters and situations and learned some vocabulary.

Noodle also read some books on his own- The Flying Flea, Callie and Me, Encyclopedia Brown Finds the Clues and Socks.  Since there are so many good books I want Noodle to read, we use bedtime as another avenue to read.  After we finished The Cricket in Times Square, our bedtime book was the sequel called, Chester Crickets New Home.  Noodle also enjoys the Magic Tree House Series and has read the first 3 books so far. I have a "rule" that Noodle reads for 30 minutes a day. I set the timer and often times he reads past the timer and will plead to "finish a chapter" or one more page. Of course I am all for that. I love to read and it thrills me that Noodle is developing a love of reading.

Other ways we do language arts around here is through games.

Spelling - Hangman, Spelling City online and on the iPhone, Bookworm..... in the learning to read stage we played Sight Word Bingo and Boggle Jr.



Word Association Games are always fun too  - Apples to Apples, In a Pickle and Password.

General LA Games - Super Sentence, Word Racer, Rory's Story Cubes



One place that I have recently found a lot of great ideas, is Pinterest. We recently did some Book Spine Poetry that I originally discovered on Pinterest.

 

 

I am excited about finding more and new opportunities to make Language Arts fun. Be sure to check out other Playing With Words posts at the Virtual Curriculum Fair.