Archive for the ‘grammar’ Category
Paragraph Writing for Kids Using Graphic Organizers
June 11th, 2010
Paragraph writing can be daunting for kids, especially the first few times. Often teachers give an assignment to their students such as, "I want you to write a paragraph about..." Unfortunately many kids freeze up and just stare at their sheet of paper, unable to write anything. It's not that they haven't read a lot of paragraphs, but writing a paragraph is a whole other thing.
Writing doesn't have to be so hard! There are easy ways to teach paragraph writing, using graphic organizers. Paragraph writing becomes as easy as putting a hamburger together. Their are a few key ideas to use with the graphic organizers and your kids will be on their way to paragraph writing with ease. Watch and see how easy paragraph writing can be.
Order your graphic organizer study skills book, Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills today.
Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET
Stop the Summer Learning Slide With Grammar Game
June 7th, 2010
Summer stretches out before you. Your kids are excited about being out of school. However, it doesn’t take too long before your kids are claiming they are bored. So, to keep your kids interested over the summer, one of the easiest things to do is to provide fun learning games for your kids.
Research has shown that when kids are not involved with learning activities over the summer, their skills don’t just stay where they were at the end of the school year. Instead, your kids lose ground and retention of what they learned over the prior school year. So, one thing you can do to prevent this learning slide, is to play learning games over the summer.
Here is a Review of Bonnie Terry's learning grammar game The Sentence Zone written by Lori Seaborg of http://www.FreelyEducate.com:
We are having a great time learning grammar.
"What?!" you say, "You're having great time in grammar class?"
Why, yes. That's exactly what I meant. Thanks to The Sentence Zone, a grammar game designed by Bonnie Terry Learning, grammar can not only be bright and colorful, but as much fun as a game of Monopoly. Here is how it works, as described by Bonnie Terry:
If you're looking for a fun way to improve writing and grammar skills, this game is for you! For 2 to 6 players, grades 1st and up. Rules are easily mastered. The Sentence Zone can be played at six levels - from Level 1 in which the player builds a subject and verb sentence, to Level 6 in which the player builds complex sentences with independent and dependent clauses. With over 500 color coded cards, students are sure to be unique and entertaining every time. A great reinforcing individual activity where a player keeps track of his score from day to day, trying to top his previous score, or a great group activity where competition drives creativity and learning.
It took me a little while to figure out The Sentence Zone. It wasn't a game that we could play right out of the box. But after reading the directions, and realizing the many directions the game could go, we got started learning our grammar and - enjoying - it! Since enjoyment leads the way to a love of learning, The Sentence Zone is a success in our home.
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So, do yourself a favor, check out The Sentence Zone and Bonnie Terry's other reading game and math game too!
6 Must-do Learning Games & Activities For the Summer
June 3rd, 2010
Can you do your own summer learning program?
Should you do your own summer learning program?
Fact: More than half of the achievement gap present in 9th grade between lower- and higher-income children can be explained by summer learning loss.
Make Learning Stick with learning games and reading fluency training over the summer. There are many things you can do at home to bridge that summer learning gap.
- Reading Fluency using Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills…and Yes…it only takes 5 minutes to do. Sally Shawitz, author of Overcoming Dyslexia states, "I urge parents to make fluency training their number one priority."
- Take a weekly trip …to the zoo, a local park, the pool, the river, a local factory…and afterwards as a family write down what you did and what your favorite part was…using the fill-in-the-blank forms from Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills and create a booklet to keep for all of your weekly trips.
- Do some nature activities such as listening to outdoor sounds, nature rubbings, shape hike, incher hikes … again use the fill-in-the-blank forms from Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills to describe what you found or did.
- Activities to do at home like making puppets and putting on a puppet show. Bake cookies together, have a backwards day where you eat dinner in the morning and breakfast in the evening, do add-on-stories. Again write down your favorite things or worse things about the activity.
- Have a Game Night or a Game Day…choose learning games…they are fun as well as work on skills. Some great ones are The Sentence Zone (play & learn sentence building and grammar while having fun) , The Comprehension Zone (play & learn reading comprehension and listening comprehension), or the Math Zone (play & math calculation practice).
- Read books together…and write a review or report on it, or have a review night where you all act as book reviewers of the book you read.
Poetry Writing Through the Colors: The Sentence Zone
February 9th, 2010
Our kids often get assignments where they have to write a poem, and they often struggle with it. Poetry writing is not always the easiest thing to do, especially when you have LD, dyslexia, or ADHD. Even gifted kids can struggle with poetry writing. It doesn't matter if you are homeschooling or in a public school, poetry writing can be difficult for anyone.
However, writing poetry doesn't have to be so-o-o hard! There are many different types of poems, and I've found one of the easiest types of poetry to teach my kids is the Haiku, specifically the Cinquain type of Haiku Poem. Learn how to use the Sentence Zone for writing poems. This is made really easy using The Sentence Zone game because you can write the poem with colors.
Using The Sentence Zone game makes writing poetry easy for kids with LD, dyslexia, ADHD, or even gifted.
Hope this is helpful! Don't forget to sign up for the FREE teaching and homework tips!
Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET
SAT Prep with Grammar Game The Sentence Zone
January 30th, 2010
Many of you already know that I created The Sentence Zone a number of years ago to help my students with sentence writing as well as grammar. I play it with my younger students to help them write interesting sentences instead of the 3 to 4 word sentences they usually write. I play it with my middle school students to help them out with their English grammar lessons. So my focus has always been on sentence writing, language building, and grammar.
I have always told everyone that it was used at multiple ages, because it is, but I didn't think of using the game for SAT prep until Patricia Lara stopped by my office a few weeks ago. She was telling me how useful the game was in her work with SAT prep with her juniors and seniors in high school.
In addition to helping them with the grammar portion of the exam, she told me how it really 'broke up' the prep sessions. Her students were able to get a break from the intensity of preparing for the exam but still learn at the same time. So, I asked her to show me how she was using the game. I think you'll enjoy this additional use. Watch and see for yourself how easy it is to learn with The Sentence Zone. It is a great test prep tool for tutors, families, homeschoolers, and teachers.
Hope this has been helpful. Don't forget to sign up for the FREE Teaching and Homework Tips! And, PLEASE, Pass this post along to others!
Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET
How to Improve Reading and Memory Skills and Still Have Fun
January 7th, 2010
What can you do during the winter weather to help your kids improve their skills? This question is a frequent one for me. Parents are always interested in helping their kids, but it is sometimes hard to stay motivated, especially during the winter months.
The following activities work well with all kids, whether they have dyslexia, LD, ADHD, are falling through the cracks, or are gifted. I have done the activities successfully with all of them!
I have two favorite things to do to not only help my kids, but to stay motivated doing it too. The first thing is to have more frequent game nights, playing educational games - learning games like The Sentence Zone, The Comprehension Zone, or The Math Zone. When you play games with your kids, they build skills while having fun and get a lot of modeling from you too. At the same time you get to have quality family time, so it is a double win situation.
The other activity I like to do is to have an evening where I might turn the heat up a degree or two, and everyone gets dressed in ‘summer’ clothes, and we have a ‘picnic’ on the floor of the living room. Afterwards, we might tell stories to each other – what I call ‘add-on stories.’ In these stories one person starts off and then the next person adds on to the story. We keep going round and round and the story gets longer and longer. The only thing is, the kids have to pay attention and so do you, so what you add on makes sense to the story. This builds listening comprehension and memory as well as a really good time.
Hope this is helpful!
Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET
Grammar Game Makes English Easy Whether You Have Dyslexia or are Gifted
July 9th, 2009Parents often ask me what they can do to help their children improve their writing and grammar skills. Some of these parents have children that are gifted, some are average students, some are falling though the cracks, some have dyslexia, and some are even autistic. Even though the range of children runs from dyslexia to gifted, I typically suggest they do the same thing to help them improve their writing.
Learning writing skills is relatively easy when you use graphic organizers as an aid such as those in Ten Minutes to Better Study Skills. Then, to improve on their rough drafts, I suggest they use a variety of sentence types in their writing. Remember, good writers use a variety of sentence types in their writing. That is what makes their writing interesting.
So, how do you learn how to write good interesting sentences that are different types? An easy way to learn about the different types of sentences we have in the English language is to play the game The Sentence Zone. While playing the game you actually learn the 6 basic sentence types we have as well as how to punctuate them.
One of the really neat things about it is the different ways it can be played. For instance, 1st graders can play it to learn how to write a sentence. Middle school students can play it to start learning more complex sentence writing and grammar such as the difference between a direct object and a predicate nominative. High school students can play it to prepare for the grammar portion of the SAT test. (It includes advanced vocabulary for older students.)
The Sentence Zone is a grammar game that can be played at multiple levels as your children grow, so it never just sits 'on the shelf'. It is one that helps your children:
1. Write sentences with their spelling words. 2. Understand grammar as well as their English homework. 3. Prepare for the grammar portion of the SAT test.
The game is a fast fun way to cement in that nitty-gritty grammar. I have a video here showing you several of The Sentence Zone's uses. I start off with 1st, 3rd, and 4th graders playing and then move on to a 9th grader playing The Sentence Zone. Hope you enjoy it.
Remember, whether your children are gifted or have dyslexia, playing educational games helps to cement concepts into their brain. Playing educational games does this because your brain is in a more relaxed state while game playing. This relaxed state frees the brain to retain more information. The game is color-coded and studies have shown that using color improves retention by 25%.
Hope this has been helpful. Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET