Hopefully you already see your children do this. If not, I will say that by “help” I mean ever so subtly suggest “playing the book” to them after you've read the book together (“Would you like to make a box and a treasure map?”), and give them the time and whatever sheets and capes they need. Then step right out of the way. When I was visiting your blogs for {pretty, happy, funny, real}, I was delighted to see these children playing hobbits and dwarves in a most creative way. I think the homemade dwarf hood might be the best one! It got me to thinking about repurposing old felted sweaters….
Ask for Bob? |
I had nothing to do with this production other than provide the paper. But nothing. I was pregnant and then nursing a baby, and only too glad that the kids were busy with something that didn't seem actively destructive.
After about a year, when I had resumed my consciousness, I tried to morph it into some sort of school thing. Maybe the newspaper idea had played out, but nevertheless, that's when all interest in it died.
Learn from my mistake.
You provide the lessons in orthography, typing, word processing, copying, and dictation. You expose them to all the worthwhile forms of reading you can. Offer plenty of paper, pencils, pens, notebooks, play time, and printer time. Patiently wait until they have something to say. Encourage saying it. Enjoy! And that is the secret to laying the groundwork in young children for the skill of writing.
Sarah says
Our kids (7,6, and 4) have played the following:
Little House on the Prairie (girls wearing aprons, boy strapping a toy gun to his waist, loading every toy they own onto the couch, and boy sitting on the arm of the couch holding a stick horse to drive the “wagon”)
Boxcar Children (setting up dishes and dolls under the dining room table, which of course, was their boxcar)
Little Sal (toddler walking around the room, picking “berries” in her basket)
Harry Potter (in robes, with “wands”)
Wizard of Oz (travelling to see the wizard)
And many more, including Bible stories. So much fun to watch. One of their favorite things to pretend is what they call “poor little orphans”, which is a theme in many books. Children on their own, without parents or many resources, trying to survive.
Deirdre says
Oh, poor little orphans was always a big one with us, as well!
Paula says
This is so great! I had a best friend who enjoyed reading, playing and writing as much as I. We had a beautiful girlhood. We were Anne and Diana, Pevensies, Jo and Meg….and our dollhouses and doll families! We went way beyond Barbie. Our dollhouses were elaborate affairs filled with amazing hand made items. Every doll in our families had a name, personality and history. We even had newspapers written in the voice of the dolls ( very much like your examples ) and the wit and observations are still humorous and dead on. Thank you for this series. I'm inspired.
Kimberlee says
Swoon! Kids' writing like that makes me so happy. The ads are fabulous. Oh I miss the days of my (now grown) boys playing S&A – one of them tried sailing down the street with a sheet rigged up on his scooter and the other one actually ran a signal light and flags up a 'mast' with a pulley system on the corner of the house. Those were the days! Thankfully I still have two little girls who like to ride together on a giant lion…
Deirdre says
BAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! Hialrious!! I clearly did not appreciate the humor of this at the time.
I love how he uses all of Will's nicknames in the one story. Also, he's rough on my soccer skills!
Katherine says
My eldest daughter started a family newspaper and I didn't learn about it until one of my sisters mentioned how much she enjoyed it. My daughter had been writing and sending letters by then, so it was just one more step to composing and mailing a monthly newsletter to extended family (who learned more about what was going on in our household than I did). Having a female editor, it was different from your son's – poems, recipes, drawings, horse stories, book reviews. She did it for a few years and then it died a natural death as her younger sisters weren't editor material. Writing has been this daughter's strongest talent in college, especially poetry. And I had nothing to do with it except get out of her way and not critique.
Terri says
Those Journals are priceless. How fortunate that you saved them!
I've read Mr. X's professional writing, as well as Rosie's, Suki's and Deirdre's writing here on the blog. If I were to judge your skill as a teacher by their written work, I'd say you're a master. Well done.
Kelsey says
I love this! I teach third and fourth graders, and I wish that society at large still accepted these ideas of gradual, intuitive, fun learning. There is such pressure for kids to produce, and it quickly becomes tedious and banal. I mean, how many nine year-old kids really want to keep writing tightly-structured five-sentence paragraphs about what they had for dinner?
Jenny says
I am blown away that these newspapers were produced by a ten year old and a thirteen year old. My first semester in college, which was around the time that Windows 95 was released, I had an assignment to do some type of assignment in a newspaper format. I was ham-strung. I couldn't figure out fonts or margins or formatting and certainly did not give myself enough time to learn it. I turned in some monstrosity that is probably my most ashamed piece of academic work ever. And now I find out I was being bested by a ten-year-old! 🙂
Alice says
I particularly like that the place and circumstances of poor Rosie's broken ankle are known, but not the date.
Anne says
haha, my favorite little tid-bit there is the classifieds!
Brenda says
This is wonderful stuff, Leila! How it brought back memories of my childhood (verrry far back!), as well as the more recent memories of bringing up my own children. Yes, I can remember playing a version of the “poor little orphans”, as one of your commenters mentioned. For some reason, we could never just play “house”, the ordinary way….oh, no!…we had to add adventure to the mix: running away from bad guys, starvation & bad weather, etc. Always some kind of drama. :o) My girls liked to play “boarding school” with their dollies. And once the oldest learned to write a bit, she would prepare class lists & lesson plans. Playing with all the furniture cushions in the house was another popular game for my three. Set up on the floor, draped with various cloths, these became a dozen different places & dwellings. Good memories, oh yes.
Betsy M says
Those are so funny! My kids do little plays and recreate many stories (The Boxcar Children and Laura Ingalls being two favorites). Performing plays over the Christmas holiday was also an everyday activity. One funny result from the play performances is that our two year old little man now knows how to take a bow after a performance. I told him “good job” the other day after he went potty and he bowed.
nt12many says
You're right, Leila, there is something about trying to turn such efforts into a planned project which drains the motivation out of the children. Other homeschooling moms ask me how I get my kids to be motivated and my reply is always a lame, “Uh…I get kinda busy keeping them fed and clothed and we limit computer usage and, uh, read a lot….”
I often can't show you tidy little preplanned lessons and I am, most definitely, not industriously planning and teaching throughout the day but good books ignite the kids imaginations and (eventually) fruitful and imaginative learning pours out of my offspring.
This experience (repeated for almost 25 years) has convinced me that education is lighting a fire…not filling a cup. There is a difference!
Jill Farris ” target=”_blank”>http://www.generationalwomanhood.wordpress.com
Jenny says
I thought of this post last night when my daughter came home from school with a homework assignment. Use each spelling word in a sentence. My daughter loves to write. She has books and journals and notes and whatever and writes and writes. But, oh, the agony of composing sentences with spelling words. The writing muse lost interest in the formal school work.
Monica says
I just wrote a post on this with some pictures of what play writing looks like to my kids, ages 5.5 and 3.5. I LOVED this series on writing from you! http://celebratingasimplelife.blogspot.ch/2013/01…