A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Grammar

Review: The Pirate’s Guide t’ th’ Grammar of Story

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So  The Pirate’s Guide t’ th’ Grammar of Story: A Creative Writing Curriculum is an interesting program to me.  My son initially fought me hard on it, but I’ve never sen him have so much fun with a grammar/story program ever, nor have I seen him change his opinion so radically. 

I am impressed with the change.

So let me tell you more.

The Pirate’s Guide (or as we call it here “the Pirates”) is a creative writing curriculum that uses the story of a pirates to help students develop their own creative writing talents.  As a parent teacher I was pleased to see the clear table of contents for both the lessons and the exercises.

 My son enjoyed the exercises, simply having fun with them.  🙂

Pirate’s Guide is designed for children 11 and up to use independently.  And it is!  It’s not one of those curriculums that requires parental or teacher involvement.  I just told the lad.. do the next thing, one page or five…just keep working through it, and he literally does just as much as he wants often times bringing his lessons to me so I can see how he had fun with it.  🙂   It’s so good to see those grins and the sheer delight. 

Using a story narrative to teach the art of telling a story works really, really well. The exercises have the students picking out adjectives, verbs and more. Humour is injected into the exercises wherever possible, making the lessons “fun” as my lad likes to say. 🙂

Below my son had fun pretending he would be the only child at a birthday party, because you know, he had no friends or family at all.

All in all a well done curriculum for teaching children how to write creatively, and to write it well.  🙂  My lad wants to finish his way through it which is really good.

My Thoughts:

I’ve
only been able to preview the first 80 pages thus far, but I am looking
forward to making this part of his regular curriculum in the fall.  He
does it on his own, either a page a day or a whole unit of exercises.  I
leave it up to him and some days he’s really on a roll with it so I let
him fly.  Other days he’s just busy and just wants to put in his time. 
🙂 

My son’s thoughts:
It’s well designed
I like the way they teach the stuff in it.
The exercises are fun and easy to do.

The Pirate’s Guide t’ th’ Grammar of Story: A Creative Writing Curriculum
Pirate Captain Yogger LeFossa
(S. Christopher Hansen and J.R. Fehr
Wondertale
www.PiratesGuideStory.com

Where to find it for your own students delight:
 Amazon.ca: A Pirate’s Guide t’ th’ Grammar of Story: A Creative Writing Curriculum

Amazon.com: A Pirate’s Guide t’ th’ Grammar of Story: A Creative Writing Curriculum

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Language Arts: Our Style

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Welcome to the Virtual Curriculum Fair 2017 week two.  This week we talk all about language arts, how one plays around with words.   Our host is the lovely Susan.  You can learn more about the VFCF2017 right here.

I have to admit, it took a while to figure out a system to study Language Arts in our home.
Knowing that my boy (like his mother) tells stories as easily as breathing I thought, why not use that.

So I grabbed this freebie book from the library discard pile and off we set.

First he needs to draw a picture of the story he wants to write.  He spent days at this, getting all the details right and NO, I’m not allowed to show you.  🙂

 Then you develop your main character.  This was harder than the lad anticipated.  He thought he could just do yellow, pointed ears character.   Then I asked : so how tall is he?   Does he eat meat or vegetables?   What makes him laugh?   Does he ever cry?   Does he have friends or is he a loner?

Once he had the character nailed down a bit better he moved on to writing his story.  Bit by bit he adds to it.  And bit by bit he learns.  Every day a 1/2 hour of work is required.

Each time he gets a chapter done, we sit down and we edit it together.  We make the changes right in his story, discussing spelling errors, word usage, sentence structure and all that fun stuff.

And you know what?   He’s learning.  It’s not a battle.  It’s a sitting down and talking and learning together.  Sometimes I’ll read a sentence and not know what it wrong with it, so I’ll ask other folks and they’ll show me what’s wrong and then the lad and I both learn something new.

It’s good to do this.  🙂

I have to admit, I getting curious about what treasure his character is going to discover…

Anyways, this book has a variety of stories one can write out, from adventures to mysteries.
Draw it out, write it out chapter by chapter and just work your way through it.   We’ll be working our way through it for a good time to come yet.  🙂

I admit that we are taking our time with it, and we did get side-tracked when I was ill so are rather behind, but a new week is dawning and a lad will learn and grow, and I’ll be there with him.

This post is part of the Virtual Curriculum Fair.   I do hope that you’ll join us in reading through what some of us have put together.   Here’s the list of the gang.  🙂

Please visit my fellow homeschool bloggers who are writing about Playing with Words this week:

All posts will be live by Monday, January 9th at noon EST.

Delight Directed High School English by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts & Minds

Act Your Part Well- 2017 VCF by Lisa @ Golden Grasses

The Search For Language by Michele@Family, Faith and Fridays

Our Top Picks for Language Arts by Amanda H @ Hopkins Homeschool

Multiple Approaches to Language Arts in 2017 by Laura @ Day by Day in Our World

How We Cover the Language Arts in Our Homeschool by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory

Use Your Words by Laura @ Four Little Penguins

The Art of Perfecting Macarons by Jennifer @ A Glimpse of Our Life

Loving Languages Every Day by Jen K @ A Peace of Mind

Speech Therapy & Elementary Latin by Yvie @ Gypsy Road

The Readin’ and Writin’ Part of Homeschool by Shecki @ Greatly Blessed

Children Who Love Books by Lizzy @ Peaches At Home

Customizing High School Language Credits by Christy @ Unexpected Homeschool

A Poetry Feast by Sarah @ Delivering Grace

Teaching Language Arts without Curriculum by Brittney @ Mom’s Heart

I know your pain and it is worth it! by Kim @ Good Sweet Love

Language Arts: Our Style by Annette @ A Net in Time

Words! Words! Words! by Lisa M @McClanahan 7

10 Wonderful Word Games (+1) by Lori @ At Home: where life happens

What About Reading Comprehension? by Kristen @ Sunrise to Sunset

Teaching Grammar and Writing Through Discussion by Chelli @ The Planted Trees