First Grade, Grammar, Set Seven

We are using games to review the four Parts of Speech we learned this year. I found these ideas on the internet, and then made changes to fit our situation.

• I made paper bags with labels "Verb", "Noun", "Adjective", and "Preposition". On the back side of each label I wrote the definition and glued them on so they could be lifted and the definitions read, if need be. Then I wrote 88 words on pieces of card stock. We took turns sorting the words into their correct bag.

• The next week we took a word from each bag and used them to make a sentence. We each did five sentences.

During this set we are learning about the Writing Process. Since November is National Novel Writing Month, I downloaded the elementary school workbook (it is FREE to download) from the Young Writer's Program and we are working through it.

• We started by putting her inner editor away
• Deciding on some novels she really likes and why she likes them
• Now we are getting to know the characters in her story
• Next we work on the plot of the story.
• The workbook uses the plot roller coaster. K. seemed a bit lost while we were working on the plot, so I drew the roller coaster on a piece of scrap paper and we used it to write out the plot of a book we had just finished reading. Then she seemed to understand the concept and we were able to finish the plot of her story with much better participation and input from her.
• Then she drew a map of where her story takes place.
• After K. wrote her novel, I typed one chapter each day and then we edited it (there were four chapters).
• She only wanted to draw a picture for the cover. I scanned it in and put it on the cover.
• I saved it as a pdf and printed it in the "booklet" format. We will print enough copies for her to give to her aunts for Christmas presents.

I like this novel workbook so much that I am planning on ending each school year using it. It will be fun to see how K.'s novels change from year to year.