National Novel Writers Month

For the month of November, Banana Brain and I are writing novels. Her word-count goal is 5,000. Mine, as with all adult participants in NaNoWriMo, is 50,000.

The first day has gone off with much enthusiasm. Banana has a great title, a great premise, and a whole stack of great ideas bouncing around in her head. I'm not sure whether the enthusiasm will last. NaNoWriMo veterans tell us newbies to expect a slump in the second week.

I have to say, though, as with travel and any number of other things, life is more fun when you do it with kids. Banana walked into the room yesterday evening and said, "The only way I could stay up till 12:01 is..."

I laughed. She was thinking of the official time when NaNoWriMo starts--the moment it officially becomes November 1st. I had just been wondering whether I had the stamina to stay up till then myself. Sharing the excitement definitely motivates both of us.

I had never really thought I might find a writing buddy in my own household. It's adorable and inspiring. I believe I've discovered the reason the woman in Proverbs 31 smiles at the future: it's because she has children sharing in her busy days.

Trip Journal

Today, we finally got around to journalling last year's trip. This is part of our prep for what we'll be doing this fall: finishing the rest of the Great Canadian Road Trip. Yes, folks, later this year, we will be headed for the east coast.

Hopefully, we'll journal along the way this time, then put the finishing touches on when we get back. It'll be much less overwhelming. However, I have so much help and enthusiasm, we're whipping through it (at a snail's pace--"Don't put scissors in your mouth." "Please don't step on the pictures...").

This was an idea from a homeschooling magazine I read recently--can't remember which one right now. It was either Homeschooling Today or Homeschooling Horizons. The writer enthusiastically remembered scrapbooking her way through family vacations with her sisters. Not necessarily keeping a traditional diary, just making a collection of mementos and scattered thoughts.

We began by getting an old atlas and a hardcover journal. I cut out the provinces from the Canada map in the atlas. We decided to journal chronologically (where we actually went) rather than province by province, since we got to the west coast last. It didn't make sense to start there.

I made a title page for the whole trip, then a title page for the first part of it. I glued Saskatchewan and Alberta in place and marked our travel route on them with contrasting pen and highlighter for good measure.

We printed off some of our digital photos, and I made several maple-leaf-themed templates. Some for photos, and one for them to write a few thoughts on. We trimmed pictures with great creativity (and new scissors! Joy!!), jotted down favourite events and memories, and created layouts before gluing them into place.

Even Brat Boy filled out his own entry, writing "bunny" and "T-rex." (The bunny came into our campsite on the second night. First the kids fed it, then they chased it. Typical.)

I went back to my old blog posts from last year and printed them off, with a few edits. These made up the actual travel log for our Alberta segment. To make sure I could glue it in, I opted to space the paragraphs wide, print it on half-pages, and do some artful paper-tearing to fit things in the journal.

The result is a family collaboration that looks lovely so far, and contains the individual thoughts and memories of each of us. It's not really Daddy's kind of thing, so I doubt he'll contribute. We may convince him to after awhile, just so as to have some of him in the pages too.

Though they're outside on the trampoline, bouncing out their pent-up excitement about the upcoming plans, they assured me they want to continue working on the project. Skills have included:

• creative writing
• spelling (they each had a mistake or two and a question or two)
• copywork (Squirrelly Girlie wanted to write "my favourite things in Alberta" just the way I did)
• dictation ("Banana, tell Brat Boy how to spell T-rex while I print the bunny picture.")
• art
  
• co-operative tasking
  
• fine motor skills for the little ones

Storytelling Around the Breakfast Table

Yesterday morning, the youngest three sat there over their cereal bowls and told stories for about half an hour straight. These were real-life stories, perhaps slightly embellished. It made me think of family story-telling time in the Little House on the Prairie books.

They took turns telling about and reliving their experiences on the waterslide when they went on a field trip with Grandma and Granddad. It got quite melodramatic at times. The most amusing part to me was that they were all there on that trip; and yet, when the storyteller would pause, one of the listeners would eagerly ask, "And then what happened?"

Essay Writing and Memory Tools

Today, I sat around the dining room table with the older two kids, and we went over the basics involved in writing an essay. I had them do some copywork at the same time, dictating a few notes to them. The notes were supposed to look like this:

Topic: what to write about

WHY?
-to share facts
-not opinions
-not copying

TOOLS
-books, internet, people
-Fact Sheet

Here, however, is Spazzerific's version. I accepted this because I used to use the same technique of amusing myself (mainly with Tenille) to help me stay focussed during boring subjects.

Tipoc
what to write abuot [deliberately misspelled]

WHO&
gnat apinions
gnat copeein

COALS
pepoel, intergnat, boooooookssss, Fat Sheep

I typed out the original, along with a "how-to" list of steps to follow, so he has a set of notes he can actually read. ;~) Plus, that way, when he destroys or loses the notes he has, I can just print off another one.

Language is an Art Indeed

Today, Dave assigned Spazzerific to write an essay. The Spazz hasn't done this before, and I honestly have to admit I've forgotten a lot of the process of assembly I learned in school.

Dave asked the Spazz to come up with a topic. He came up with a topic and a half-page of known facts and quotes on the California condor. Dave had a look and asked, "Where did you get this info from?"

"Well," said the Spazz, "Some of it's from my bird book, and some of it, I made up."

Dave burst out laughing.

The Spazz hid behind me and burst out crying.

Once I got Dave to shut up, I explained to Spazzerific that Daddy was laughing because it sounded like he was telling a joke when he gave his answer. Dave knows perfectly well that Spazz never "makes up" facts, especially about birds, which was what made his comment so humourous. Thankfully, the Spazz accepted the misunderstanding. The poor little duffer sniffled a bit and said, "I'm just nervous, because it's my first essay."

I have the hardest time getting this kid to slow down and accept help. He thinks he has to know everything about everything, and he penalizes himself fiercely when he "fails." I'm concerned that we nail down the skill of realistic self-evaluation and develop proper information-gathering tools to avoid feelings of failure and frustration. The essay format is not an end in itself, it's a tool. My job is to adjust this kid's thinking from "assignments are the end goal" to "assignments are ways to outfit my toolbox of skills."

"I only wanted a topic," Dave explained. "We'll show you how to write the essay."

So we sat down and I made him an outline to work with. He decided what to say in his introductory paragraph, and then began organizing three other paragraphs. He's not quite done yet. I'll continue walking him through it, and then we'll see how he feels about it. Better, I hope.

Story and Spelling

The cat fell off the roof of the house today. (You'd have to know our cat - this is par for the course with him.) This prompted a big fight at supper over who was going to get to tell Daddy. Without really thinking about it, I said, “Why don’t you each take turns telling different parts of the story?”

We then divided the story equally between the four kids. After that, we discussed who would go first, middle and last, depending on which part they each wanted to tell. Then I coached the four-year-old on what parts his story would have. We came up with three sentences – a beginning, middle and end.

There we go. A study in basic story structure.

After supper, the kids made a phone call to their homeschooling friends-at-a-distance, which somehow turned into an impromptu spelling bee. Banana Brain’s little friend Blondie came up with all kinds of odd quizzes.

Spazzerific jumped in on it too, looking up esoteric dinosaur names to give Banana Brain some ammunition for Blondie, and referencing Blondie’s convoluted bird-name questions in his Field Guide to the Birds. This activity got louder and louder, until the mothers on both ends of the line were telling the children to tone it down. Oh, the giggling. Oh, the inadvertent learning. ;~)