There are so many effective and fun ways to teach children grammar other than
workbooks. They do take a little more time from us, because we can't just sit
them down and leave them. We find that the memories and attitudes and lessons
learned make it so worth it. My 9 year old just discovered writing emails to
her grandparents, aunts, and cousin. She absolutely loves it. You have to
understand, though. She absolutely hates writing! We opened up her own email
address under ours. She now writes almost daily, and she loves to get her own
mail. Who doesn't? I don't correct everything. I sometimes just give her some
suggestions, but I can already see an improvement in her spelling. I'm also
just very excited that she's excited about writing.
Madlibs are another favorite at our home. For
the same 9 year old, she can tell you what adjectives, adverbs, nouns, etc. are
and give you examples. Without madlibs she would not know or care. Our older
girls still enjoy doing them sometimes, too. They like to write their own
stories and leave out certain words for others to fill in. And as the younger
ones see them doing that, it encourages them to want to write their own. We
also play Hangman and Scrabble as spelling games.
Another fun game to encourage writing is what we
call "fold it down stories." One person writes a sentence, skips to the next
line and writes half of a sentence, then folds over the paper so that only the
half sentence can be seen. The next person finishes that sentence, writes a
full sentence, then writes his half sentence. Fold the paper down so that only
the last half sentence can be seen. The next person finishes the half sentence,
then writes his own. Continue around the group of 2 or more writers until you
fill your page or are ready to stop. Unfold the paper and have someone read the
story.
While I am on games, we have seen them teach
great thinking skills, too. We play card games like Uno, Battle, SkipBo (I had
a whiz at Uno at 3 years old!), Great States and Great States, Jr., Into the
Forest, Monopoly Jr, Clue Jr, Scattergories Jr, etc. Of course the older girls
and adults have their favorites, too. They are such fun ways to learn and
think.
I encourage you to skip a workbook today and
play a great game with our child. You'll be very glad you did! Make it a
weekly part of your learning. Also, if you have suggestions of any great
language or spelling games, I'd love to hear them.
