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The holiday season is a joyous time, and it's also a perfect opportunity to unleash your child's creativity with some fun winter themed writing projects. These writing projects are more than just writing prompts. They're engaging, creative, and fun. They're designed to be easy to use at home, but they're perfect for the classroom too! 1. Write a Letter to Santa
2. Start a Family Recipe Book
3. Write Holiday Cards for Your Friends and Family Everyone sends out the same printed photo cards each year. Personalize your holiday greetings with notes from your children.
4. Daily Letters with Your Elf on a Shelf (or Mensch on a Bench)
5. Write A Holiday Carol! Do you have a favorite holiday song? Perhaps Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer or I Have a Little Dreidel? Write new lyrics to the tune of your favorite holiday song! Share it with your family during your holiday celebration to start a new tradition.
I spend time reflecting upon these ideas, letting the ideas tumble around in my mind until I discover the connection I’ve been seeking. Slowly, I relate one idea to the next until I’ve found my thesis.
What is Phonics?
Phonics is a method of teaching people to read by correlating sounds created by letters or groups of letters within an alphabet. When we teach spelling by phonics, we focus on the correlation between graphemes (groups of letters that form a single sound) and phonemes (their sounds). By studying spelling through phonics, students begin to see letter-sound relationships. As such, these students develop strong decoding and encoding skills. A successful phonics curriculum focuses on the sounds within words rather than simply memorized spellings. The HEROES Academy spelling curriculum focuses on a different sound each week, but each week includes a variety of spellings that produce the same sound. Students develop pattern recognition skills rather than memorizing spelling rules and exceptions. Rather than memorizing a set list of words each week, students become familiar with various spelling patterns that fit a single phonetic sound. For example, the long a sound can be created with the a-e spelling pattern such as in the word date. Alternatively, the long a sound can be created with the ai spelling pattern such as in the word bait. At the first and second grade level, you will notice that most of the words for a given week rhyme.
When we visited the bookstore, a popular field trip for us, I still felt as if my options were limitless. I, of course, subconsciously knew that the store reached beyond the cozy comfort of the children’s section and, eventually, the young adult section, but I was always gently directed towards a section containing a treasure trove of new literary delights. As I progressed from picture books to chapter books to middle grade books, young adult books, and eventually ventured towards whichever section I felt compelled, each new section brought about new entertainment, knowledge, and memories. I never once felt frustrated or illiterate.
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Danielle VoitDanielle Voit is the Co-Director of HEROES Academy. Archives
November 2018
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