love to paint

Last year, one of Autumn's friends wrote a poem at school that was quite creative and cute.  When I read it, I questioned whether Autumn could write something like that.  This wasn't the pride kind of questioning.  It was the 'is she even able'--'does she know how to write at all'--kind of question.  I've written on this blog that I decided to switch writing curriculums this year.  For Kindergarten, I had used The Writing Spot with the girls.  But, the first grade teacher's guide I had wasn't specific enough in its plans so it seemed overwhelming.  That was why I'd switched two years ago.  After two years of Writing With Ease I had questions like the ones I mentioned earlier.  Is Autumn learning to write?   She is a creative little girl and my feeling began to grow that she needed a creative curriculum.  So, I went back to the curriculum I'd started with in Kindergarten from Great Source .  I'm starting Autumn with the seco...

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I had begun to ponder writing curriculum and what I was going to use with my oldest daughter this year.  Well, it's been interesting since then.  I had ordered 2 new Evan Moor Books and 3 used Evan Moor books.   DON'T buy Evan-Moor books used !  This was what I learned.  Amazon has made a mistake.  They show the new copy with listings for the previous edition under the used listings.  I thought I was ordering the books I saw on the preview, but I wasn't.  When the 3 used books arrived, I was very disappointed.  Rather than saving money, I found myself in the thick of a lot of trouble!  Returning an item to Amazon directly was pretty easy, but I had to drop it off at a UPS drop box.  The second return was easy, the money was simply returned when I contacted them that I had received the wrong item. The third item, on the other hand, was a pain.  I had to make a claim to Amazon about it and the s...

I suppose I've given this entry a strange title.  A few weeks ago when I had my end of year review, I felt quite confident about what we've been doing and our plans for next year.  I worried that pride comes before a fall and my husband reminded me to just enjoy it while it lasted, because it would likely pass. And it did. Last Friday, I started having a reoccurring thoughts about how I've been teaching Autumn about writing.  I added a creative writing program this year to supplement Well Trained Mind's Writing with Ease, Year 2 .  I found that Write About Me and Write about My World , published by EPS, were wonderful additions.  The rote method of Writing With Ease has some gaps.  There is no enjoyment of writing in the course for the student.  I didn't want Autumn to miss out on that enjoyment--especially since she is very creative.  As a side note, many of the passages used in WWE were also above her comprehension level (which interesti...