Show and Tell

Show and Tell Thursday, April 3

Show off those talents. Share a story, a special moment, a piece of artwork. Any accomplishment, great or small, is fair game.

Getting my boys to enjoy writing has been a goal of mine since we started. My second son absolutely hated to write and it was pure torture to even get 5 sentences out of him last year in grade 4. My elder son thought writing was okay, but not his fave thing to do. They both have these amazing imaginations and it seemed like such a waste to me that we wouldn't have many records of all that goes on in their brains.
In the fall I had them each start a blog. Well, it wasn't long til they begged to write in their blogs every day. I finally saw the lightbulbs go off in their heads. Writing didn't have to be a chore. It was a way of recording what was in their hearts and minds. It could be fun!
They thought it was so fun, that when I decided to do NaNoWriMo in November and write a novel, they decided to join me. They both wrote more than they had ever done in their entire lives. And they were so proud of their accomplishments and so am I.

Well we are taking the month of December off of bookwork. I need a break:)
I think we are all relieved that Nanowrimo is over and we are putting away our novels for now. I am so pleased that the boys seem to enjoy writing now, it is an answer to prayer. I look forward to reading their stories after Christmas, their imaginations astound me! Neither boy reached their word count goals, they did not even come close. But they attempted something huge! And I am proud of them for that. I think we will edit their stories and then I will put them into small hardcover books for them. And maybe I can convince them to give them away to relatives as well!
I am looking forward to diving into Canadian history after Christmas, I have to remember to order my books from the library and CHER. I plan on getting a ton of historical fiction as well, we all enjoy that. I may even try to pick up a bunch of the American History Adventures in Odyssey as well. The time periods will line up and it is great to know the American stuff as well. Plus Daddy loves it! I hope to find some big chunks of planning and organizing time this month. Planning for school and organizing the whole house including school stuff we aren't using right now.
Maybe I can get the kids to do some 'science' in the kitchen, I need some Christmas baking done!

Catch-up

I must have spent hours yesterday downloading and unzipping those children's recordings. Why could there not have been a nice torrent file available? There is a link on that page to another page that has old Disney recordings among many others and they are available in a torrent file that I will download as soon as I get some file sharing again.
My kids really enjoyed listening to stories all day as they avoided their schoolwork like the plague.
I decided that since they wasted Monday and Tuesday supposedly working on their novels all day, but not actually writing, that I was going to keep doing their regular school with them and let them write when they were done.
They are both behind in their word counts now. B is perfectly capable of reaching his and catching up by spending a few extra minutes here and there. But I am afraid of R, my reluctant writer who is 10, feeling overwhelmed and just giving up or being frustrated. It is really important to me that they have fun with the novel writing, I want writing to be enjoyable for them. I know that school took the fun out of writing for me. Especially the crappy high school English teachers I had, who taught us absolutely nothing. NOT A THING. The teacher I had for grades 9 and 10 was in the middle of a nervous breakdown, and came to class only very sporadically. His substitute let us watch videos most of the time. Often women's weight-lifting competitions. weird.
In grades 11 and 12 I had the drug-dealing, stoner teacher. I am not exaggerating in the least, he actually sold pot to students. He did not know any of the 20 students names, unless they partied with him. All we did was read aloud in his class and we had 3 essays to write which he randomly assigned a grade to, based on if he could put a face to your name or not. After handing in my second essay and receiving a C ( a mark I had never seen on a paper of mine before!) I refused to hand in anything else. I didn't think it was worth my time to let him grade my work. At the end of the school year he had us come to his desk and tell him what grade we deserved, so I said a B. I had never received lower than an A in English, but I figured with a C on my paper that wasn't gonna happen. He gave me a B, the lowest percentage B.
When I wrote my departmental exams I received honors and scholarship qualification, thanks to the excellent elementary school teaching I had received. Nothing on the exams had been taught to me in all of my high school career. but the basics were all there in the back of my head I guess.
anyways, after my experience in high school I decided I hated writing. And I do not want that for my kids. They have amazing imaginations and I want them to be able to express those thoughts on paper.
So I decided for R, I will spend at least one day a week as his scribe for his novel. I will let him just tell me the story and I will do the typing and help get his word count up. So that is how I will spend my afternoon.

Word count as of November 6

Just wanted to say, before I got in bed.
10418!

word count for day 5

Word count as of last night
Me: 7004
DS#1: 3440
Ds#2:1072

We all fell behind on the weekend, but it was a good learning experience for us. We can not reasonably expect to write on the weekends, we often have hockey at 6:30 in the morning and often til 11 pm. Activities fill our weekend schedule to over-flowing. I figured out how many words it would take each day for us to only write on weekdays. 2300 for me, 1400 for ds #1 and 560 for ds #2. ds #1 and I made our word counts yesterday, but I am afraid it is too much for my younger son. He is stressed at falling behind and now the new bigger word count is stressing him. 400 words a day is a huge stretch for him. Going from maybe writing 5, 5 word sentences a day to 400 words a day in a very short period of time is a big deal. Add to that his extreme difficulty with spelling I really think I may be pushing him too far asking for that extra 160 words a day. Yesterday he wrote for hours and hours and still did not meet his goal, I don't want him to feel like he can't do it, I want it to be fun for him. But I want his goal to be achievable for him.
Not sure what to do about this for him, I will try to schedule at least 2 hours on the weekend days for him to write I guess. Maybe that will be less stress for him.
Any ideas?

Busy weekends = no writing

Okay okay, I know I told you to bug me about my word counts every day. My word count for the weekend? About 800 words.
I learned something about my family, we do not have time to breath, eat, or sleep on weekends-never mind writing. So I reconfigured our word count needs. I figure to only write on weekdays I need to write 2300 words each weekday, so that is what I am gonna do. That being said, I have had company today and am on my way to hockey right now and I have the flu. So I will be writing tonight after hockey as long as I can keep my peepers open.
My boys have been writing all day, so I should be able to post their counts as well.
Thanks for asking guys, I will keep you updated.

Word counts for Friday.

Me: I just finished right this second with 4245 words.
DS#1: 2025, he was finished pretty early today, I am thinking he could have done the whole 50000 instead of just 30000. But I didn't want to push it, I like them liking writing!
DS#2: 809 and still loving it. I just can't express how excited this makes me. I am so flippin' proud of my little authors!
I am tired of writing now, so I think that there will be no blogging for me today. Maybe tomorrow.