Parenting Tips: Family Word Collage (Writer's Workshop)

by Deborah Pace Rowley

On the first day of Writer’s Workshop, I challenged the students to create a word collage about themselves. They flipped through old magazines and sorted through stacks of junk mail to find the perfect words to describe themselves. Kids are often asked to create picture collages at school but word collages can be so much more interesting and fun. Who knew that one of my students recently had her best friend move to Singapore? Who knew she would find the word Singapore in a magazine just waiting to be cut out? It is always interesting to see what words or phrases students use to describe themselves- Wild Child, Funfetti, Cuddle Up, Cleaning is a Dirty Word, Fashion Queen.  

This parenting tip involves creating a word collage, not about an individual, but about YOUR FAMILY. Set out a piece of poster board, some scissors, some glue sticks, and a stack of old magazines or junk mail. Cut out some big letters to spell your last name and glue them to the top of the board. 

Then let your family add their own words to your family collage. You don’t need to find the words intact. You can spell out the words that you would like to include by cutting out the individual letters that you need. You can also cut out complete sentences, phrases, or slogans. This can be an activity you complete in one evening together or an ongoing activity that the family adds to over several days or weeks. It can be very eye-opening to see what words family members choose--- crazy like a fox(?!), FOOD, spiritual, service, making the grade, BOOKS. What words do your children associate with your family? Did they use the ones that you thought they would? 

Ask your children about the words that they chose. Be careful not to be critical or judgmental. If kids sense any negativity, real honesty flies out the window. (What do you mean you think our family is FRUIT CAKE?!) Keep your voice calm and neutral as you smile and ask, “That is interesting word. How does this word remind you of our family?” You will be amazed at what you learn. This collage can even help you reconsider the things you focus on and what you want to prioritize with your family in the future. 

Note: The Family Word Collage at the top of this post was created at the website: Wordle. If you haven’t already discovered this website, you need to check it out. It makes fun word “clouds” that you can print out and use for gifts, birthday cards, recognition events or any occasion. 

http://www.wordle.net/

Pin It

Elementary Activities: Knights of Right Challenge with Paper Dolls (Writer's Workshop)

by: Deborah Pace Rowley

On the third day of the Writer’s Workshop, my oldest daughter Melissa M’Lin Rowley came to talk to the kids about her books. She had the first book in the Knights of Right series published when she was just 16 years old. (See the side bar for more information on these amazing books.) During her senior year of high school, she was able to travel around the country visiting different elementary schools, talking about writing and making positive choices. It was fun for the students in the Workshop to meet a real “author” and to learn that you don’t need to be old like ME to publish books. It was especially fun because several of the students at the workshop were serious fans of Knights of Right! 

During her elementary school presentations Melissa would hand out paper dolls of knights and challenge the students to complete different activities to earn the armor for their knights to wear. In the books, the main characters earn armor for completing quests like being honest and saying ‘No’ to drugs. The elementary school students were challenged to complete their homework and thank their teachers. They were asked to help a friend and stand up for someone being bullied. For each task on the list that they would complete, they would earn a new piece of armor for their knight. 

I thought it would be fun to share the knights and their armor with you for your own summer Knights of Right Challenge. Your kids can color the knights and hang them on the fridge or the wall. The armor page is purposefully left blank so that you can write your own  challenge beside each piece of armor. Would you like your child to read more this summer or to do more outdoor activities? Write these things down next to a piece of armor. Would you like your child clean up his room or do the dishes? These would make great armor challenges. Maybe you would like to award a piece of armor for each time your son is kind to his sister or each time your daughter helps her little brother. Personalize the armor for your own family and let the Knights of Right tournament begin!  

Note: These Knights and Armor were drawn by Melissa’s illustrator: Michael Walton! 

Girl Knight

Boy Knight

Girl Armor

Boy Armor

Pin It

Preschool Activities: Homemade Books (Writer's Workshop)

By Deborah Pace Rowley

Preschoolers love to create homemade books. I think it makes them feel all grown-up. They are “authors” after all! I have boxes full of the little creations my kids made when they were small. Books filled with pictures and dictated words. Books covered in magazine cutouts and collages. Books with numbers and objects from 1 to 10. Books with illustrations for all 26 letters of the alphabet. Books smeared with watercolors and crayons, colored pencils and finger paints. Homemade books are so much fun to fill!

As I prepared for Writer’s Workshop I found this awesome website full of different homemade book ideas: http://makingbookswithchildren.blogspot.com.

The simplest and most versatile book that Susan Gaylord writes about is the hotdog book. Print out the instructions below or follow this simple tutorial. 

First, fold the paper vertically- hot dog style. (I used legal size paper for a larger picture book, but regular 81/2 x 11 sheets would also be fine.)

Then unfold it and fold the paper horizontally or hamburger style. 

Now hold the paper with the fold away from you and fold one side up to meet the center fold. 

Turn the paper over and do the same thing again, folding the other side up to meet the center fold. 

You should have now created a W that you can set in front of you on the table. 

Take a pair of scissors and cut the center of the W just down to the side folds. 

Now pull both halves down toward the table. 

Crease the folded paper closed so that it forms a book. 

If everything went smoothly with the above instructions, you should now have a 6-page booklet complete with a cover and back flap for your preschooler to fill. Now that you have made one homemade book, I guarantee that it won’t be your last!

Print out instructions on how to make the hot dog book here: 

Hot Dog Book

Pin It

Teen Activity- Speech and Thought Bubbles (Writer's Workshop)

by Deborah Pace Rowley

The first day of Writer’s Workshop we created Comic Books. As an attention-getting activity, I set out a pile of speech and thought bubbles with markers and turned the kids loose in my house. Their job was to add speech and thought bubbles to all the paintings and pictures they could find. I gave them a wad of sticky tack to stick the bubbles in place but I think some tape would work just as well. 

Soon all the photographs and paintings and murals were filled with funny one-liners and the kids were so excited to drag me around the house to share what they had written. When you try this activity at your house, it doesn’t need to be done all at once. It can be an activity that evolves over time. Set out some speech and thought bubbles on the kitchen counter. Do the first speech bubble yourself, then see how your kids add to the dialogue a little bit at a time. Pictures will soon be talking back and forth to each other, making funny comments and observations about life in your home. If you have portraits of wizards or knights or fat ladies hanging around, it might even start to feel like Hogwarts! 

Print out your speech and thought bubbles HERE

Pin It

Mealtime Activities: Create A Web (Writer's Workshop)

by Deborah Pace Rowley

Last week I held a Young Writer’s Workshop with 12 amazing kids. The workshop was filled with fun ideas to foster writing. I decided to share a few of the ideas this week and will include others in later posts. Each day we began the workshop with a different idea organizer. Organizers are great because they help kids get thoughts from their heads on to paper in a simple and non-threatening way. What is it about a blank piece of lined paper that can be so scary for kids? One of my favorite organizers is a web. This organizer can be used for everything from writing essays and planning summer vacations to composing shopping lists!

Kids who are comfortable putting ideas on paper have a tremendous advantage in their school work. Using organizers in a fun way at home can really improve this skill. Simply print out the web from the link below and set it on the dinner table with some markers after an adventurous summer day. For example: I could set out the web after the kids and I spent the day at the local water park. Announce to Dad during dinner that the family is going to tell him all about their day using a spider web of words. Begin by filling in one of the bubbles with a topic related to the day, then pass it on to another family member. They can add a detail to that topic or start a topic of their own. Continue until all of the bubbles are filled. You can even add some more bubbles of your own. One of our topics about the water park could be: “Scary Slides.” Some of the details included in the bubbles that branch off “Scary Slides” might be: 

Mom closed her eyes on the Boomerang. 

Katie and Addie rode the Free Fall. 

Joseph learned the trick to catch as much air as possible off the biggest slides. 

Other topics we could include in the big bubbles: Getting There, Injuries, and Safe Old Lady Slides. Trust me, there are some stories behind those topics! It is amazing how many things you can remember to tell Dad once you are prompted by the organizer. Try it and see how much fun spinning your own “spider web” can be!

Web Organizer: http://printables.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/00/ORG00_003.pdf

Note: I found the idea web organizer on the Scholastic website. They have lots of other great organizers at this site as well. Check it out. 

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/graphic-organizers-reading-comprehension

Pin It

Parenting Tips: What Arguing with Your Teenagers Really Means

By: Deborah Pace Rowley

By now, you know that I love the book Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merriman. One of my favorite chapters is called The Science of Teenage Rebellion. I was fascinated to learn that when our teenagers argue with us, these arguments are actually positive. The chapter describes an extensive study that found that honesty was correlated with conflict. If teens are not arguing, they are pretending to go along with their parents’ wishes, but are actually going behind their parents’ backs and doing what they want to do anyway. “In families where there was less deception, there was a much higher ratio of arguing/complaining. Arguing was good---arguing was honesty.” (Page 148)  

Parents didn’t recognize this fact. Mothers were surveyed and most felt that arguments were destructive to their relationships with their daughters. 77% of daughters, on the other hand, felt that fighting strengthened their relationship with their mother. “They saw fighting as a way to see their parents in a new way, as a result of hearing their mother’s point of view articulated.” (Page 149)

The key is how the arguments are resolved. Teenagers need to feel heard and when reasonable, parents need to budge a little. Kids need to feel like they can win a few arguments and get small concessions as a result of others. “The type of parents who were lied to the least had rules and enforced them consistently but they had found a way to be flexible that allowed the rule-setting process to still be respected.” (Page 151) The book gives this example as a guide: Imagine a child’s normal curfew is eleven p.m. and the child explains to their parents that something special is happening on a certain night. The parents listen to the argument and accept that it is a reasonable request. Ultimately, the parents say, “Okay, for that night only, you can come home at one a.m.” This encourages kids not to lie and to respect the rules. 

After reading this chapter, I know that I have looked at conflict with my teenagers completely differently. I hope this post has given you something to think about as well. 

Pin It

Elementary Activities: New Ways to Play with Sidewalk Chalk

By Deborah Pace Rowley

Drawing with sidewalk chalk is an essential summertime activity at our house. Here are some new ways to play with sidewalk chalk that your children may not have tried before.

• Use chalk to write cheerful messages on the driveway of an elderly neighbor or on the porch at Grandma and Grandpa’s House. Try not to get caught!
• Create a City. You can draw the perfect place for Little People or Matchbox Cars to hang out. Include the school, the grocery store, the police station, the hospital and everything else that your chalk city needs.
• Bug Race Course. Create a start and finish line then round up critters to try out the course.
• Play paper games such as Tic-Tac-Toe, Bingo or Dots and Boxes.
• Play Scrabble. One person writes down any word. The next person has to write down a word that connects with that word in some way. For added fun, choose a scrabble theme like Girl’s Names, Toys, Foods etc.
•  Write in Secret Code. Put the code key next to the secret code on the driveway or sidewalk so that anyone who comes along can decode your secret message.
• Finish the Scribble. One person draws a scribbled line. The next person has to complete the picture by turning the scribble into an object such as an animal or a person or a thing.
•  Play Pictionary. One person draws while the other person tries to guess what they are drawing.
• Create magic chalk art like in the movie Mary Poppins. Draw a scene you could imagine jumping into and visiting for the day.
•  Lead someone on a sidewalk chalk trail. The path you draw could include instructions to “Stop Here and Do a Dance” or instructions to “SKIP” or “GALLOP” to the next place down the road. Make sure that your sidewalk chalk path leads to a fun treat or other reward.
•  Draw a sidewalk chalk treasure map. Create a map on your sidewalk that shows where buried treasure is hidden in the backyard. Be sure that X marks the spot for a fun snack or surprise.  
• Come up with your own fun sidewalk chalk ideas. 

Pin It

Preschool Activities: Fun With Color Tubes

By Tiffany Rudd

I remember doing activities with these simple color tubes as a child. They are about as easy and cheap as it comes to make, and there are so many different options for playing and learning with them. 

To make your set of color tubes all you need is a collection of empty toilet paper rolls and some construction paper. Just cut a rectangle of construction paper the correct size and tape it to the roll. Done. See, I told you it was easy! Now let's talk about a few activity options.

1. Jump Over The Color Stick! For this activity just stand your color tubes in a row. Then repeat the nursery rhyme "Jack Be Nimble" with a few substitutions.

(Your child's name) be nimble, 

(Your child's name) be quick!

(Your child's name) jump over the (color) stick!

Substitute a different color each time you do the rhyme to help you child practice the color names.

Oh boy did we have fun taking pictures of these activites! :)

2. As Fast As You Can! Just line the tubes up again (or spread them around the room) and call out a color. Have you child run to bring you that color tube as fast as he/she can. 

3. Color Stick Bowling! Just line your color tubes up like bowling pins and have your child use a small ball to knock them over. Have him/her name all the colors that were knocked over. Or, name them all as you line them back up. 

I'm sure you can come up with even more ways to use these fun and simple color tubes! In fact, share your ideas in the comments section. I'd love the hear them. :)

Pin It

Teen Activities: Magic Words Photography

By Deborah Pace Rowley

Recently I posted a super easy toddler activity that involved glow sticks in the bathtub. Just because your baby is now a teenager doesn’t mean glow sticks in the dark lose their appeal. You can use this activity to celebrate the 4th of July or a child's birthday or graduation but any occasion and a long summer night will do.

All you need is a camera that allows you to slow down the shutter speed. This works best with a tripod but you can set the camera on a table or hold very still. Complete instructions are found here. Find another great video tutorial here. You can use sparklers, glow sticks, or flashlights to write your magic words.  Be creative and get a team of teens to light up the night with words and celebrate together!

Pin It

Meal-Time Activities: Movie Quotes

By Deborah Pace Rowley

Did you see the second Avengers scene after the final credits that showed the banged up super heroes sitting down for a meal together? You can have your own super heroes participate in a “movie mealtime” with this fun activity. All you need to do is put a bowl of toothpicks in the middle of the table. One person begins by quoting a line from a movie. The first person to guess the movie gets the next turn. They share a quote and the game continues. If no one can guess the movie with one quoted line, that person takes a toothpick and gives a second quote from the same movie. They continue to take toothpicks and quote lines until the movie is guessed. The goal is to acquire as many toothpicks as possible by choosing an old movie or unrecognizable quotes. 

There are only a few rules:

• The movie must be something everyone in the family has seen.
• The quote does not have to be word for word but as close as possible. Mom and Dad’s memories are only so good! The quote cannot be paraphrased or purposefully altered to make it more difficult to guess.
• The quote must be more than three words.   

If you have lots of movie-buffs in your family, try this at your next dinner. Your loved ones will thank you because “true love is the greatest thing in the world except for a delicious MLT sandwich- mutton, lettuce and tomato when the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe!” And what movie does that come from?

Answer: The Princess Bride. “Good luck storming the castle!!”

Pin It