What would your five-year old do with your computer? Part 2

Yesterday I posted  here about some of the great benefits of giving kids access to word processing programs in order to write their thoughts and stories. It's a great way to help beginning writers get their thoughts down more quickly than they'd often be able to accomplish with pencil and paper.

We love looking back at these writings so much, I couldn't help sharing a couple more.

The first shows the five-year old's understanding that things are done in an order and that writing serves a purpose to instruct other people. If you're wondering how "useful" such writing is for kids, consider that the majority of elementary-level grammar books seem to assign this type of writing yearly.

"List of my 5th year old treat"

1. mix red up with green
2. mix for 1 min
3. put 2 eggs in
4. mix again for 3 min
5. put on a BIG plate
6. put it in the oven for 3 min
7. put cherries on it
8. enjoy girls ONLY

Though the above example would be rather unsettling to find on your dinner plate, I love the writing. I laugh that it's for "girls ONLY"--count yourself lucky, boys! Also, it shows a beginner's culinary understanding of how long it takes to stir and cook things.

The second example gives a glimpse into the child's thoughts on the day before her fifth birthday. Just so you know, all of these writing examples were used with the student's permission--she loves looking back now six years later and reading them. She's happy to share them with you.

    I can't wait for my birthday! I will make everyone giggle and laugh at my birthday! The whole world will celebrate me and my birthday! i will be 5 years old and sooooooooo supriesed! i canot wait any longer until my birthday!

A couple things are worth noting in this example. I shared an example here yesterday in which this same child spelled out "evrybody". A couple months later she seems to have gotten the hang of spelling "everyone". In the same two months, she came to an understanding that sentences start with capital letters (none of the sentences were capitalized the first time yet several were in this example).  And, of course, I smile that the whole world will celebrate this sweet child.

What would your five-year old do with your computer?

Perhaps the five-year old would write this:

Title: as i went on not being sick and i hit my nea when i was running arowned homarny park and i was me and 73 cophse

as i went on not being sick i hit my nea when i was running arowned homarny park and i was me! i decided i could tomarow be a dragon to christopher!

Key: homarny park=harmony park
        cophse= coughs

Sure, your first reaction might be to see all of the spelling errors or the jumps from one plot point to another. 

That's not what I see. I see a five-year old who already knows how to spell many common words and can sound out spellings for the rest of the words well enough so that you can actually follow what she's writing. (And she realizes that 'coughs' is irregular in some way.) She uses end marks correctly some of the time. She has heard enough stories so that she knows that great ones have a "problem". She's even left you in suspense--that's classic serial writing right there!

We made it a point to allow our kids to use word-processing programs at this age and to save and print their work. I'm so glad we did! Not only do we have some excellent material for the family scrapbook. We also gave them a chance to really stretch their wings when it came to writing for fun. The time they spent writing improved their spelling. For instance, in the example above, the child invented spellings for the other words she couldn't spell, but I believe she asked for the spelling of "decided". By using the word for her own purposes, it helped cement the word into her memory so that she would be less likely to need help spelling it the next time.

For one of my children, this time writing stories also helped her become someone who loves to write. Now six years later, you can often find her sitting with her computer in the early mornings on days-off, typing away at her computer. (As a side note, having a computer of her own was so important to her that she saved up her own money to buy one--she got tired of waiting to have a turn on the shared computers in the household!)

I'll close by sharing another story this same five-year old wrote two days prior to the story above. Fans of Kung Fu Panda will especially enjoy her antagonist:

    emma almost hit her pony shaped pinyata at the one night! she was hitting it softly so she could not make it do a boom to it when the treats would fall out and she would awake mommy and daddy and christopher! at the meantime emma hit the pinyata with 100 score! it was the time she went trikertreating outside! i did not know a little girl came with her prinsess and angels came and they marry a dog and the angels grin even dose the girl and her prinsess played with her! TRIKERTREAT! evrywon said! at the meantime at noon evrybody went to sleep! at the meantime at the morning emma woke up and saw evrybody gathered arowned her! she saw somebody! it was ti lung! GOT SOMETHING FOR YA! i said squishing to ti lung! MENCI! i said getting a new voice! DON'T YOU GET MY DRAGON POWER! I'M THE DRAGON WORYOR! SQUINCHY! NO! YOU WILL PINCH PIE NAILS! SQUINCHY! we raced form to form, day to day, and the queschin is who will win? ti lung just frowned! NOBODY CAN GET AWAY MY DRAGON POWER OR I'LL GIVE YOU A DRAGON SHOWER! i sended my mini ninjas to come distroy ti lung! they did as i pleasd! now after the fight all of us went home to my house! now you can think of us and do what we did and think how you can remember ti lung by making a snack that looks like ti lung to you when he died! think of that as hard as you can! think of it!

Mom's Reading-Creative Home Schooling: A Resource Guide for Smart Families

I just finished reading Creative Home Schooling: A Resource Guide for Smart Families  by Lisa Rivero. I enjoy reading it every year. It contains so many reminders to keep the joy alive. I find it very motivating and it helps me focus on the needs of each of my separate children. After all, that's a major reason we decided to homeschool.

*Why I like it:
-It helps me understand the behaviors that my children at times exhibit that seem to be related to their giftedness (although neither have been formally tested for it). Some of these behaviors include precociousness, intensity, sensitivity, drive, and divergent thinking, (read "always coming up with new ways to do things" and "trying to talk their way out of a corner").
-It's a good reminder to gradually introduce more self-directed study into our school as my children mature. For us right now, this means asking my children weekly what else they'd like to learn more about and trying to help them find out about it. It might also lead me to look for a community program I otherwise wouldn't have thought about exploring.
-There are practical ideas for anyone to use in order to make their schooling proceed more smoothly.

*Some of my favorite points and quotes:
-"One does not homeschool gifted children. One homeschools with them." Over these past couple of years, I've learned that there is a lot that I don't know about quite a few things. I've learned so much by helping the kids find answers to their own questions. They are more eager to take facts to heart if they've generated questions themselves, too.
-"Some gifted children end up underachieving. The student actively "not learns" exercising perhaps the only avenue of self-determination available. These may be letting us know that they need more, not less control over their lives." I've found this to be so true of ds8. We can often achieve the same end goal if he has even a little extra say in the path we use to get there.
-"Asynchronous kids are different ages at one time." Have you ever noticed that with your kids? That hits pretty close to home for me. It's important for me to keep this in mind. A child may be age 8 but have a reading level and speaking skills of a 12 year-old and the self-control of a 6 year-old.

Yes, this book is largely for homeschoolers of gifted children. But it's also for homeschoolers of any and every child. Why?

It's a book about that encourages a tailor-made learning environment based on the needs of each individual child. Does that sound like a lot of work?

Maybe, but in other ways, not really. For example, I don't use different math programs for my kids with different learning styles, but I might use different ways to approach the topic or reinforce what we've learned.

If it takes a little extra planning time but results in less argument during lesson time the method has its place in our homeschool.  

I'm looking forward to trying some of the ideas in this book for the upcoming school year. I'm also looking forward to re-reading the book again spring 2012.