How I Teach: Recent Episodes
Donna Reish
We used to get asked a lot WHY we homeschooled…like all the time….twenty years ago or more.
Nowadays, reasons for homeschooling are as diverse as the number of people homeschooling. There are not just a handful of reasons any more—and many of the reasons (especially the fear-based ones) are not as prevalent as they were. (Not sure if this is all good….we need to fear some things for our kids.)
After thirty-two years of homeschooling (and being done for two years now—well, done with our own kids, but not the 170 kids in our classes and part time programs!), we have narrowed it down to one big reason—with lots of sub reasons.
Truly, TIME is the biggest reason that I would homeschool if I had it to do all over again—and is something I would like for you to at least consider in your decision to homeschool or not, go to school or stay home, continue on or end. Because TIME is big—and can never be redeemed.
Blessings to you and your family on your journey! Enjoy every moment you have!
P.S. Feel free to share this video. I don’t think it is something that people talk about a lot….but it was hugely impactful to our family!
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I. Starting Out
A. Chose homeschooling out of fear of all of the “bad” stuff
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Bad peers
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Bad curriculum (secular)
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Bad environment
B. “Pioneers” 1
. We were afraid of everything (unfortunately)
- Very Bible-driven and character-focused (fortunately)
II. Middle Years
A. As older kids entered high school
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Moving away from fear a little and more into reality (these kids need occupations!)
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Focused in on academics while still keeping a character-basis and a relationship style of parenting
B. Began writing curriculum and testing it with homeschooled kids
III. Ending Years
A. Relationships with adult kids and kids still in school
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Realized more and more it was the time we have had together
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Adult kids still needed the time
B. Watched siblings as many as ten and twelve years apart develop close relationships
IV. The NUMBER ONE Benefit of Homeschooling—Time
A. Time cannot be duplicated, redeemed, or reallocated
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Average American mom spends 13.5 hours a week with her child; average homeschooling mom spends 77 hours a week with her child
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My own quick math
a. 8 hours a day x 180 days
b. Yields 1440 more hours per year that kids who are homeschooled are with their parents/siblings
c. Probably between 1500 and 2000 per year with 9 hour days, bus rides, before and after school activities, etc.
- Any way you slice it, it is too much time to try to “make up for” on weekends or holidays or summers. The sheer number of hours is staggering.
a. At 1500 hours a year x 13 years
b. Nearly 20,000 hours
B. Time that kids are with parents
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Who is going to shape your child during those 20,000 hours?
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Do we want it to be teachers and peers or us?
C. Time to lean in to their strengths and weaknesses
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Academically
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Becoming who they will become
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Emotional support
D. Time with siblings
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Who are your best friends here?
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Who matters more than anyone else here?
E. Time equals influence
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“You will become the five people you spend your time with”
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Kids change according to who they are with and what expectations and allowances are made
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Time influence is the time of the people who ARE influencing your kids (you) and time that peers are NOT influencing your kids.
F. The thing we put our time into is what grows
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Do we want the home to be the center of your child’s world or the school?
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If our kids go to school, we SHOULD put the effort and time into that school due to the number of hours are kids spend there (don’t send them then complain about everything!)
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Make your home the center of your family, not the school
V. Summary
A. Do I think all is lost if kids go to school?
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No!
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But it takes supernatural effort and work
B. Co-ops, half day programs, Friday School, private tutors, even babysitters overseeing some work can all make it happen more easily
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Homeschooling doesn’t have to mean you do all the teaching
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It doesn’t have to mean that you love to teach
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It just means that you are going to do everything in your power to have as many of those 20,000 hours/ 2500 days be with you rather than away from home for their thirteen years of school.
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Look me up for more information and links to my resources:
Language Arts Lady Blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/
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How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
Our Homeschool History YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUKW-AXDovY&list=PLjS7lbVmIJpx-3kxpeE8ianP4Ux1BX5iE
Our Homeschool History Episodes: https://languageartsladyblog.com/ourhomeschoolhistory
Done Homeschooling Younger Sister
- Lisa went to and thrived in 9th grade—our year had been a success
- Joshua (2nd bday) and I spent our days learning, helping others, and learning how to manage a busy home (lots of people in and out!)
- Wrote preschool curriculum for Joshua
Helping Others With Homeschooling
- Most local Indiana families were in Christian schools or had moved
- Had half dozen families (most in Ohio or out of our county) umbrella teacher (advantages & disadvantages)
- Continued presentations whenever asked
Our Days
- Structure
- Play dates
- Organizing
- Working in church children’s ministry
- Field trips, park days etc
- First (of 6!) Levi Coffin field trips!
Did you get one of my writing frameworks freebies yet? A week of writing projects with my video teaching! (Visit: https://languageartsladyblog.com
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Our Homeschool History YouTube Channel: https://www.youtue.com/watch?v=IUKW-AXDovY&list=PLjS7lbVmIJpx-3kxpeE8ianP4Ux1BX5iE
Our Homeschool History Episodes: https://languageartsladyblog.com/ourhomeschoolhistory
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Episode 10! Ready to wrap up our first year of homeschooling with the good and the bad!
Good
- Learned to systematize
- Implemented dailies
- Learned so much about teaching and homeschooling
- Lisa was ready to go back to school in the fall—especially socially
- Glimmer of hope for the self-less marriage we desired
Bad
- It was hard work
- Had the beginning of “homeschool pride”—not the good kind!
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Our Homeschool History Episodes: https://languageartsladyblog.com/ourhomeschoolhistory
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Week in the life of….1983..our first year of homeschooling. Part II of II
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Social Anxiety
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Fear of people, running into store, bullied at school, low self esteem, anxiety
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Played clarinet in little church band
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Helped with small group—and blossomed in this environment
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Great success socially helping with nursing home services and visitation
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Exercise at Y; art classes
7.. 2. Indiana law 180 days of equivalent instruction
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Counted school days (she seldom missed)
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Counted field trips
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- End of year academic results—tested by her school again
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Math—from 2nd grade level to 4th grade level
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Reading—from 2nd grade level to 6th grade level (even though her capacity wasn’t supposed to go that high!)
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Our Homeschool History Episodes: https://languageartsladyblog.com/ourhomeschoolhistory
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Week in the life of….1983..our first year of homeschooling. 1. Typical morning 2. Lisa dropped off 7:00 on my mom’s way to work 3. Independent list until I was ready 4. Joshua 12-18 months old…get up, rock, sing, read posters on his wall 5. Once Joshua was ready for day/fed, I checked Lisa’s work so far and taught her reading and math 6. She had joined little church band, so she had several independent activities on her list: Cleaning job, practice clarinet, silent reading, math drill, read to Joshua, misc assigned from our reading and math lessons, biography reading, geography workbook…
- Typical afternoon* I read history and science with her
- We also baked, cooked, organized, and played with Joshua throughout the day
- Most days were similar
- Saved some intense lessons for when Joshua napped
- She was picked up at 3:30 when Mom got off work unless it was art class or Y night or mid-week service
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(1.) Within a few months of homeschooling Lisa, we went to a character training seminar held at a local church/Christian school
- This was taught by Ron and Rebekah Coriele almost forty years ago.
- Mrs. Coriel told a story about the oldest daughter who told her friend she couldn’t be dishonest because…” my mom won’t see, but God will”
- We knew that his character-filled lifestyle was what we wanted for our family.
(2) We began immediately.
- Nursing home ministry
- Explaining everything
- Character teaching
- Scheduling
- Deference
- Diligence
- Following instructions
(3) Our approach did have some downfalls that would later take us years to figure out and fix.
- Everything was black and white (which is good in parenting but not a great world view when trying to teach empathy etc ). We were choosy in who we should serve—and gave a negative impression to our kids about people who didn’t agree with us.
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(1) My history of discovering Dailies.
(2) If I can’t keep up with the dailies, how will I do harder and harder things with homeschooling and home management as our family grows?
(3) Early on with Joshua as a toddler—Dishes, Laundry, and Trash every day before anything else.
(3) Dailies grew as our family grew.
- Morning routines for kids for personal dailies
- House Dailies—everybody’s daily chores
- My personal Dailies
- Evening Dailies
(4) Peak of our homeschooling with several students
- Dailies—dishes, laundry, trash woven into daily chore sessions
- Youngest child who could do the job did it!
(5) Today—two empty nesters with 100+ students coming in and out every day and 24 family members (10 little ones!) in and out
- We both have our Dailies for the house
- I have my personal Dailies in the morning and evening
- Still living the “Dailies” life!
Check out my downloadable, undated “Prioritizing Planner”—where you’ll learn how to prioritize each day—after your dailies, of course!
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Prioritizing-Planner-2315748
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Subject line: What do Dailies look like? (Our Homeschool History 6)
Happy February, !
This week’s episode of “Our Homeschool History” is more about those “Dailies”—specifically what Dailies looked like for us over the past forty years!
1) My history of discovering Dailies.
(2) If I can’t keep up with the dailies, how will I do harder and harder things with homeschooling and home management as our family grows?
(3) Early on with Joshua as a toddler—Dishes, Laundry, and Trash every day before anything else.
(3) Dailies grew as our family grew.
- Morning routines for kids for personal dailies
- House Dailies—everybody’s daily chores
- My personal Dailies
- Evening Dailies
(4) Peak of our homeschooling with several students
- Dailies—dishes, laundry, trash woven into daily chore sessions
- Youngest child who could do the job did it!
(5) Today—two empty nesters with 100+ students coming in and out every day and 24 family members (10 little ones!) in and out
- We both have our Dailies for the house
- I have my personal Dailies in the morning and evening
- Still living the “Dailies” life!
I want so many great things for you and your students!
Love and hope
Donna
aka language arts lady
LAL—one-stop writing source for ages 8 to 18!
P.S. Check out my downloadable, undated “Prioritizing Planner”—where you’ll learn how to prioritize each day—after your dailies, of course!
P.S.S. Grab my freebie for the first two weeks of February—Keep Close Coupons. Perfect for ❤️ Day!
__________________
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Come along with me on my journey to share Our Homeschool History.
Here are some of the things I share in this episode:
1) Always a big thinker/doer—huge responsibilities when 12; taking on big projects on student council; projects in teachers college were my delight (as long as they didn’t take art skills or laminating!); homemaker—endless projects!
2) First year of homeschooling eighth-grade sister; Joshua was one
3) Ray came home and took him by hand to show him projects (laminated shelf labels that I had colored out of coloring books, animals divided by jungle, farm, aquatic, etc, closets, and drawer, etc)
4) Elaborate systems—laminated and contact paper boxes, put stickers on the baby wipe containers people gave me, so much detail that neither I nor anyone else could keep it up.
5) Dishes, laundry, undressed toddler, etc all undone —Ray always rescued me as he affectionately called me a “closet lady”!
6) Read sidetracked home executive—divided into dailies, weeklies, etc
7) Learned about the dailies!!! These would come to make a significant impact on our homeschool and my mental health (!) in years to come
8) Dailies—the things you do habitually each day—before other “extra” things
Check out my downloadable, undated “Prioritizing Planner”—where you’ll learn how to prioritize each day—after your dailies, of course! https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Prioritizing-Planner-2315748
Subscribe to Language Arts Lady at the blog, YouTube, and I-Tunes so you don’t miss an episode of “Our Homeschool History” and “10 Minute Grammar”! https://languageartsladyblog.com/
I have so much to share with you about our thirty-two years of homeschooling! I want so many great things for you and your students!
Look me up for more information and links to my resources:
Language Arts Lady Blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/
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Our Homeschool History YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUKW-AXDovY&list=PLjS7lbVmIJpx-3kxpeE8ianP4Ux1BX5iE
Our Homeschool History Episodes: https://languageartsladyblog.com/ourhomeschoolhistory
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Welcome to Episode #4 of Our Homeschool History. I love this episode so much as I dig into one of my favorite topics—-littles! Oh, how I love the littles! Here is the scoop of today's episode: * How we knew that homeschooling would become our life * How we learned early on that the secret to success with homeschooling lies in developing systems and structures * How I designed my toddler’s day for learning, play, rest, character formation, and fun! * How I used time well to teach my sister while also meeting our toddler’s needs. * How we focused on creating a love for learning from babyhood * Baby chores * Much more!
I have so much to share with you about our thirty-two years of homeschooling! I want so many great things for you and your students! ----------------------------------
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Welcome to Episode #3 of Our Homeschool History.
This episode delves more deeply into our first year of homeschooling—when I was twenty years old; was married for a year and a half; had a one-year-old toddler; had just graduated from Ball State University with an elementary education degree; and more:
- My young age of beginning homeschooling as a twenty-year-old teaching my eighth grade sister
- How I was thrusted into homeschool leadership as a twenty-year-old---teacher/covering for Ohio homeschoolers; vendor at the first Indiana homeschool convention; taught others about homeschooling
- The summer I read ten homeschool books, and we began going to homeschool conventions and seminars
- Meeting Dr. Raymond Moore, the founder of Christian homeschooling
- Using one of the first curricula available early on—Home Grown Kids by Dr. Raymond Moore
- A tailored curriculum to Lisa’s level in each subject
- Back to the basics
- Reading a few times a day: silent reading at her silent reading level; oral reading at her learning level; read aloud by me at her listening level
- Focusing on taking her out of her comfort zone to help her become more social, self-assured, etc.
- Super successful year in which she went from second grade reading level to sixth grade reading level
I have so much to share with you about our thirty-two years of homeschooling!
I want so many great things for you and your students!
Look me up for more information and links to my resources:
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Our Homeschool History YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUKW-AXDovY&list=PLjS7lbVmIJpx-3kxpeE8ianP4Ux1BX5iE
Our Homeschool History Episodes: https://languageartsladyblog.com/ourhomeschoolhistory
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Welcome to Episode #2 of Our Homeschool History. I don't talk much about politics---ever! But our beginning to homeschooling was very politically and socially-driven (complete with home visits, principal meetings, and much more!). So this episode is about our first year with legal action, Dr. Raymond Moore's visit, fear, and a little politics.
Here is the scoop of today's episode (my only political episode ever--I promise!):
- The first dozen families homeschooling in our little town
- The first Indiana Homeschool Convention
- Home visits, social workers, principal conferences, and more -Spending the day with Dr. Raymond Moore, the founder of Christian
- Homeschooling during his deposition for a Union City family
- Last family standing?
- Umbrella teacher for Ohio families in our area
- Lisa's tailor-made curriculum through Home Grown Kids
- How much I ADORE homeschooling
- Much more!
I have so much to share with you about our thirty-two years of homeschooling!
I want so many great things for you and your students!
Look me up for more information and links to my resources:
Language Arts Lady Blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/
Language Arts Lady Store: https://languageartsladystore.com/
Teachers Pay Teachers Store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Language-Arts-Lady-With-Donna-Reish
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
Our Homeschool History YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUKW-AXDovY&list=PLjS7lbVmIJpx-3kxpeE8ianP4Ux1BX5iE Our
Homeschool History Episodes: https://languageartsladyblog.com/ourhomeschoolhistory
How I Teach Episodes: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelanguageartslady/
Monday Mini Mail (Archived Articles): https://languageartsladyblog.com/monday-mini-mail/
10 Minute Grammar Podcast: https://languageartsladyblog.com/10-minute-grammar/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/characterinkhs/_created/
Facebook/Language Arts Lady: https://www.facebook.com/charactertrainingfromtheheart
Punctuation Puzzles: https://languageartsladyblog.com/articles/punctuation-puzzles/
2022-2023 Classes and Tutoring: https://characterinkblog.com/classesandtutoring/
All LAL Freebies: https://languageartsladyblog.com/freebies/
How I Teach iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to the first episode of a broadcast that will span a nearly-four-decade period of homeschooling! In today’s episode, I go back thirty-eight years ago when we began homeschooling my younger sister (eighth grade) with a toddler in tow: * Why a 21 year old young mom who just graduated from college with a teaching degree was drawn to homeschooling * How we “fell” into homeschooling, which would become a way of life for us * What homeschooling was like in Indiana in the early 80’s—and how we attended the first state homeschool convention! * The difficulty in getting materials then (and “under the table” purchases from Christian schools) * The political climate during the early days * How we were able to bring my sister up multiple grade levels on one academic year * Much more!
This episode is a little longer than what I’ll typically do. So keep watching for these ten-minute episodes and be motivated, inspired, and taught through my ups and downs, successes and mistakes.
Look me up for more information and links to my resources:
Language Arts Lady Blog
Language Arts Lady Store
Teachers Pay Teachers Store
How I Teach YouTube Channel
How I Teach Episodes
Our Homeschool History YouTube Channel
Our Homeschool History Episodes on LAL blog
Monday Mini Mail (Archived Articles)
10 Minute Grammar Podcast
Facebook/Language Arts Lady
Punctuation Puzzles
2022-2023 Classes and Tutoring
LAL Freebie of the Month
How I Teach iTunes
Welcome to HIT—How I Teach….In this episode, I explain my methods for teaching phrases, subject verb agreement, prepositions, and more!
Quick Review of Part I of This Two Part Series (#51):
- CAVES—Capital, All makes sense, Verb, End mark, Subject; how to teach students to recognize a sentence with that acronym (see my CAVES posters and reference ring cards here! (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sentence-Building-Posters-and-Reference-Rings-Grammar-Posters-6978892)
- How to help students memorize MANY subordinators
- The value of using check sentences and mnemonics and clues!
- Using weekly Think Fast Grammar Quizzes from 3rd grade on to memorize parts of speech (Beginner and Advanced)
On to this week’s content:
- Differences between phrases and clauses
- Reasons for learning prepositions
- How to teach where a prepositional phrase begins and where it ends
- How to teach students more than one hundred prepositions (Hint: Use one of these packets from my TPT store— Bugs on a Log, Beauty and Beast Preposition Packet, or Preposition Packet)
- Writing with prepositional phrases
- Isolating prepositional phrases to locate and match subject/verb
- Punctuating sentences with prepositional phrase openers
- Much more!
It’s all here in this week’s HIT––where each week, I bring you tips, tricks, and techniques for teaching writing, language arts, grammar, and more (to grades two through twelve) drawing upon my 100+ curriculum books totaling over 50,000 pages.
Note: This lesson came from The Write Right Quick Kit, an upper level, teacher, parent downloadable book!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I explain my methods for teaching sentences and clauses (phrases will be in episode #52).
Here are some of the highlights of this episode:
- CAVES—Capital, All makes sense, Verb, End mark, Subject; how to teach students to recognize a sentence with that acronym (see my CAVES posters and reference ring cards here!) https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sentence-Building-Posters-and-Reference-Rings-Grammar-Posters-6978892
- Independent clause vs. Dependent clause
- Sentence is independent
- Subordinate clause is dependent
- How to teach students to recognize when they have written a subordinate clause vs. when they have written a sentence
- What are subordinators
- Uses for subordinators
- How to help students memorize MANY subordinators
- The value of using check sentences and mnemonics and clues!
- How to teach the creation of complex sentences using subordinate clauses and real sentences joined legally!
- Much more!
It’s all here in this week’s HIT---where each week, I bring you tips, tricks, and techniques for teaching writing, language arts, grammar, and more (to grades two through twelve) drawing upon my 100+ curriculum books totaling over 50,000 pages.
Note: This lesson came from The Write Right Quick Kit, an upper level, teacher, parent downloadable book!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I talk about the littles. The second and third graders who aren’t quite through all of their phonics lessons yet (in many cases). The ones who would love to write if someone would take them by the hand and help them.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I explain my methods for teaching paragraph breaks and give a lot of my “paragraph theory” and “pre-writing theory.” Paragraph breaks is often a difficult concept for students. And teaching paragraph breaks is also difficult.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I continue with more essay teaching for middle school/junior high—but with a “research slat” that helps this age group move from essay writing to report writing. And… you can use the Teacher's Notebook over and over again to teach any three paragraph body (optional opening and closing paragraphs) that are three aspects of one thing!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I teach a five-paragraph essay—a super-duper fun writing project for students in fourth through eighth grades (with tweaks for going lower or higher in grades for this assignment!). The reason I say it is super-duper fun is because my students light up when they get to write these fun five paragraph types of projects. They are fun essays that lean into research just enough to get students gathering info to make their essays sing!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I am (once again!) excited to teach you how I teach! I’m especially excited because this episode involves teaching elementary students. Yay for the littles!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, we turn our attention to another mechanism to help students learn to write informational paragraphs. Writing informational paragraphs in which students get information from a source, outline from it, and write a paper in their own words based on that source’s content can be overwhelming. We teach students how to read, comprehend, and synthesize information by using various outlining approaches, mapping, brainstorming, etc.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I continue to teach about the Five Paragraph Essay (or as I call it—the 1-3-1). Five paragraph essays have a lot more to them than simply being able to write an opening paragraph, three paragraphs for the body, and a closing paragraph!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks!
All of my digital books
How I Teach YouTube Channel How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I teach one of my favorites (okay, just about all writing projects are my favorites!)---the Five Paragraph Essay. Five paragraph essays have gotten a little bit of a bum rap in my opinion. Students dread them, and teachers often think they are difficult to teach (especially when they move into more persuasive types). I think just the opposite! I think five paragraph essays are super fun—and actually easy to teach because of their formulaic nature. (Sort of like---give me a list of exactly what tasks you want me to do, and I’m on it! 😉)
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I teach the important lesson of helping kids write Christmas thank-you cards. Writing thank-you cards can be challenging for adults, much less for kids. Kids often do not feel that they have the penmanship/dexterity skills to write thank-you cards neatly. They often feel like they don’t know what to say on their message.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I continue teaching about one of my top ten favorite things: time management. Specifically, time management for teachers, parents, and teaching parents!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital books
How I Teach YouTube Channel How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I talk about one of my top ten favorite things: time management. With the new year upon us, people are often looking for time management techniques, especially teachers and parents. So I thought this topic would be perfect to end the year 2021 with—and take us into 2022 with more tools and coaching to meet our goals!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I teach how I teach beginning story writing for upper elementary and middle school students. Beginning story writing is often challenging for young writers. They often do not understand the elements of story writing (even if given instructions—which can often be vague), so they end up writing a re-telling at best or a hybrid story/essay.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I talk about a subject that is near and dear to my heart—-making elementary writing (and learning in general) easier for the littles!
Here is what you’ll learn in this episode:
*The importance of the “words lead to sentences; sentences lead to paragraphs; paragraphs lead to reports, essays, and stories” approach to teaching writing (as opposed to the “100 word” assignment
*How stories (and especially familiar ones) lead to a better outcome in teaching students to outline and write from a given source
*How to pick content to use with the Writing Boxes process—-the importance of focusing not just on “readability” level but also the “write-ability” level of text for students to write from (including the need for simple sentences without too much elaboration so that students can add the elaboration themselves)
*How the Writing Boxes bring in some boundaries that help students focus on one sentence at a time when they aren’t ready for long paragraphs yet
*How amazed students are when they do the Writing Boxes for each sentence of a paragraph then bring those sentences together to create a paragraph that is more detailed than the source they wrote from!
*How much students love doing Writing Boxes
*Why Writing Boxes are the perfect first writing exercises for second and third grade students!
*Oh…and how much full samples/Answer Keys for every single Writing Box sentence so teachers don’t have to have a thesaurus or app open when helping students with Writing Boxes
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I teachers, parents, and teaching parents how to utilize a model story to teach Twice Told Tales (TTT) short story writing. A Twice Told Tales short story is one in which students are given a model of a popular story and instructed in how to write another tale that has a similar plot and ending but has a different setting, different characters, different obstacles, and more. Twice Told Tales are fun to teach and fun to write!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blogMaster (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable bookletFree writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital booksHow I Teach YouTube Channel How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I delve into the concept of a lengthy, thorough, and useful prepositions list for students. Prepositions lists usually consist of a jingle, rhyme, or chant that involves memorizing 20-30 prepositions. When students are taught prepositions lists via this method, they seldom actually know what prepositions are, why they should learn them, what they will do with them once they are learned, and how to write with them.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blogMaster (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable bookletFree writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital booksHow I Teach YouTube ChannelHow I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I share how I teach a character analysis using a simple two-paragraph model for high school students. Character analysis can be difficult to teach—students often do not grasp what they are looking for in a character in order to analyze the character. In the Before and After Character Description project, students learn to analyze a character by comparing characteristics, mannerisms, tone, words, and actions from one period of time in a certain setting to another period of time in that same setting.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I take the concept of writing essays and join it with a little research, a quote or two, a formulaic approach (three paragraphs/three topics), and boom---we have an assignment that spans many levels of junior high and high school, that boys actually like too, that can be differentiated easily, and that is fun to each!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet: Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital books How I Teach YouTube Channel How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, the question and answer format is utilized for elementary and middle school writers to write Christmas decoration paragraphs. In the question and answer format, the student is given one paragraph passages to answer questions about---and then they turn those answers into a new, original paragraph. This is a great approach for students who are not quite yet adept at finding information themselves—and especially for those who are still not sure what to include in a paragraph about a topic when they do find a source.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this second part (of two) episodes, I teach the important skill of editing student writing. Editing student writing is a skill that teachers can achieve through years and years of practice. It takes some nuancing to truly apply what we teach students in grammar and language arts to their writing (for them as writers and us as editors/graders!).
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks!
All of my digital books How I Teach YouTube Channel How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I teach the important skill of editing student writing. There is a huge disconnect in the learning process once students turn in their writing project—one that can be overcome and even enhanced through thorough, purposeful editing student writing.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital books How I Teach YouTube Channel How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I teach from a fun finish this story lesson for middle school and beyond. Students usually love to finish the story with familiar tales. They already know the general story line, so for them, instead of “choose your own adventure” chapter book, they get to “choose their own finish” to given scenes—in this case, from the story of Mowgli in The Jungle Book.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blogMaster (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable bookletFree writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital booksHow I Teach YouTube Channel
How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I geek out a little bit on grammar, namely my weekly grammar quiz parts of speech for upper level students. In this weekly grammar quiz, I cover the parts of speech that my students need to memorize in order to write well.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital books How I Teach YouTube Channel How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I go back to the littles for descriptive writing! Even very young students, as early as second grade, can be taught to complete descriptive writing if they are given the tools—and especially the framework—to do so. In this project (which you get for free---grab your Teacher’s Notebook with the blank Paragraph House Outlines, adverb lesson, descriptive writing instruction, and more!), students are taught using the Directed Writing Approach.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blogMaster (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable bookletFree writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks!
All of my digital booksHow I Teach YouTube Channel How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I bring you how to use describing words in writing for upper elementary and middle school students. Describing words, for this lesson, include adjectives, adverbs, and several literary devices. Students learn how to write two descriptive paragraphs using describing words with the Teach-Practice-Apply Method.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I am ready to teach you with quotation examples for dialogue! Dialogue writing is tough for students, so the more quotation examples we can give them, the better! And that is why I go to great (and expensive due to all of the edits needed!) lengths to be sure that I have samples of everything I expect my students to do—including many quotation examples and dialogue examples.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks!
All of my digital books
How I Teach YouTube Channel
How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, we are going to dig into all things dialogue for students. Story writing in high school usually requires a certain savviness of dialogue for students. But how do we get our students to the level where they can write dialogue well---including correct punctuation and speech tag placement?
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks!
All of my digital books How I Teach YouTube Channel How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I teach a skill that many writing teachers shy away from: quotation marks. If we want students to write well, they need to learn how to put quotes in their papers---and how to properly punctuate with quotation marks and capitalization. Quotations are not for the faint of heart. Thus, many teachers will skip them as often as possible—and students will skip them altogether if they can get away with not using quotations.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks!
All of my digital books How I Teach YouTube Channel How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode (second part of Twice-Told Tale!) It’s time to look at the second part of this Twice Told Tale lesson---The Emperor’s New Clothes. This fool-proof story writing technique takes even non-story writers by the hand to create an amazing finished product that they are super proud of!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital books
How I Teach YouTube Channel How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode (and the next---two parter!), I have a blast teaching about a story writing technique that I came up with years ago (I’m sure others thought of it too!) called the Twice-Told Tale. (Some of my early books call it The Piggyback Story.) This fool-proof story writing technique takes even non-story writers by the hand to create an amazing finished product that they are super proud of!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blogMaster (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable bookletFree writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital books How I Teach YouTube Channel How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I geek out on ways to order parts of speech teaching (and whether there are 8, 10, 12, or more parts of speech!) and I give tips on how to teach articles/noun markers. Grammarians, handbook authors, and style guides often disagree on the ways to order parts of speech. Which part of speech should come first? How do you build from one part of speech to the next? What should the timing be in the order of parts of speech?
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blogMaster (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable bookletFree writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital booksHow I Teach YouTube ChannelHow I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach...In episode #20, I explain how to choose a passage to give your students as a writing source. Moreover, I explain what a writing source should look like for your students---from the number of paragraphs to the complexity of the sentences, from the outlining spaces to the symbols a student can use in their outlines.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks!
All of my digital books
How I Teach YouTube Channel
How I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In episode #19, I teach how to use a weekly (or daily!) grammar quiz as part of your language arts study. An ongoing grammar quiz in which students easily and incrementally memorize important grammar terms is the answer that I have found to that age-old problem of “What are prepositions again” every time students have a grammar worksheet finding all of the prepositions!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable bookletFree writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks!All of my digital booksHow I Teach YouTube ChannelHow I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I continue teaching about using a checklist for revising reports, essays, and stories---including how to teach students to code their edits and changes for quick and thorough grading. I do this with a systematic revising approach that becomes habitual for students and is measurable for the teacher.
With my Checklist Challenge for revising writing, students are taught exactly what to do and how to mark changes so their teacher can grade their “colorful copy”—as we like to call it in my classes. This week we continued with the “Elves and the Shoemaker” paper and how to revise it using the following:
- Thesis Statement
- Thesis Statement “Reloaded”
- Transition sentences
- Compound sentences
- Words never used in writing before
- Redundancy omission
- Sentence openers
- Semicolons
- And more!
I also explained how to make a checklist easier for younger students (second or third graders) and more challenging for older students (up through high school).
In all of my How To Lessons (found in all first semester Meaningful Composition books up through grade nine and all month-long downloadable books in the Tools and Tricks line), students are taught how to do each revising task one at a time with a color-coded sample to follow as they make changes to a given essay (or their own). Each CC task is introduced on a separate page and thoroughly taught.
In this episode of HIT, you will find a full How to CC lessons (in your last week’s episode here.
Of course, just like every lesson in my one-month downloadable books and my one-semester Meaningful Composition books, this one also has the invaluable samples to take the guess work out of the lessons!
And for your convenience, How I Teach.... is available as a podcast (follow along in your TN sheets for that week) and a YouTube video (with Power Point containing the same as the TN)!
Note: This lesson came from Tools and Tricks II, a month-long, downloadable book from the Write-for-a-Month series.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog: https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach
Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable booklet:https://languageartsladyblog.com/teachersnotebook
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! https://languageartsladyblog.com/5writingfreebies
All of my digital books: https://languageartsladystore.com
How I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In this episode, I introduce you to my Checklist Challenge (CC) for revising reports, essays, and stories---including how to teach students to code their edits and changes for quick and thorough grading. Revising can be a difficult task for students, mostly because they are not taught how to do it thoroughly. Vague instructions, such as “add stronger verbs some places” or “don’t forget a Thesis Statement,” do not help students with the revising process.
With my Checklist Challenge for revising writing, students are taught exactly what to do and how to mark changes so their teacher can grade their “colorful copy”—as we like to call it in my classes. They are given samples of each usage addition they are to make (not just a list, such as add adjectives or add coordinating conjunctions).
Specifically, in my How To Lessons (found in all first semester Meaningful Composition books up through grade nine and all month-long downloadable books in the Tools and Tricks line), students are taught how to do each revising task one at a time with a color-coded sample to follow as they make changes to a given essay (or their own). Each CC task is introduced on a separate page and thoroughly taught.
In this episode of HIT, you will find a full How to CC lessons (in your Teacher’s Notebook) for third graders through ninth graders. I will teach you exactly to teach your students to thoroughly improve their papers with a clear-cut checklist—and how to teach them to “code” them so that you can find the changes that they make in their papers.
This is the exact protocol I use with all 50-60 of my writing and language arts students every year---and it works wonderfully and turns out amazing writers and revisers! This is part I of a two part HIT lesson, so be sure to join me next week for more!
Of course, just like every lesson in my one-month downloadable books and my one-semester Meaningful Composition books, this one also has the invaluable samples to take the guess work out of the lessons!
And for your convenience, How I Teach.... is available as a podcast (follow along in your TN sheets for that week) and a Youtube video (with Power Point containing the same as the TN)!
Note: This lesson came from Tools and Tricks II, a month-long, downloadable book from the Write-for-a-Month series.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blogMaster (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable bookletFree writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital booksHow I Teach YouTube ChannelHow I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In episode #16, I am excited (again!) to teach you about how I teach a very beginning report (moving from essay to report) for elementary students. In teaching beginning report writing, it is important that we don’t have too many new skills at once. Elementary report writing can be daunting. Students at this age (and later) often want to “write from their brains.” How can we get them from writing only what they already know about to writing with information they gather on their own?
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog Master (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable bookletFree writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital booksHow I Teach YouTube ChannelHow I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In episode #15, I am thrilled to bring you some insights in to how to teach descriptive writing for middle school (and on into high school!) students. Specifically, I teach how I teach students to write descriptive paragraphs about their first few minutes in a jungle. And even more specifically, how to write descriptively using all five senses.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blogMaster (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable bookletFree writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital booksHow I Teach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20OP_HNTUm8eBMNgMh06sQ
How I Teach Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-teach/id1552986393
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In episode #14, I bring you a darling (and fun!) first person essay project for fourth and fifth grade students! Writing first person essays can be challenging for students. They often want to go in and out of that first person (okay, not often…like almost always! Lol). But in this project, we narrow their focus down so much, give an amazing first person sample essay, and give them all the tools that they need to complete this project well.
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher's Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blogMaster (continually updated) Teacher's Notebook downloadable bookletFree writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks! All of my digital books How I Teach YouTube ChannelHow I Teach Podcast
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In HIT #13, I bring you a super fun essay writing project of the 3 Paragraph Essay or the 5 Paragraph Essay variety! Yes, essay writing can be fun for students, especially when they learn how to write thesis statements, topic sentences, transition sentences, opening paragraphs, closing paragraphs and more!
Visit https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach for blog, video and Teacher's Notebook sheets for this episode.
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In Episode #12, I bring you part II of two parts of how to teach story writing for junior high and beyond! For years, I didn’t understand how to help my students write outstanding stories—stories in which they were able to include and elaborate on the goals and obstacles of their characters, show the progressive action (and how to create excitement through it), and make it all happen within the space allotted for the project. Until…my first born son got into story writing as a hobby during high school. He spent many nights writing short stories, novels, and screen plays using the proper story writing techniques that he had learned through story writing books created for novelists.
Visit https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach for blog, video and Teacher's Notebook sheets for this episode.
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In episode #11, I bring you part I of two parts of how to teach story writing for junior high and beyond! Story writing elements can be challenging to teach to students. This is why a framework where they plug in the elements of protagonist, goals, obstacles, description, action, resolution, and more can be super helpful. Teaching story writing for junior high kids doesn’t have to be boring!
Visit https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach for blog, video and Teacher's Notebook sheets for this episode.
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In HIT #10, I teach the fun, valuable, and exciting skill of dialogue writing and short story dialogue for junior high and high school student. Of course, I have a mentor text/sample story with all of the elements AND a super fun writing project. (Oh, and free lessons…don’t forget the free lessons!)
Visit https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach for blog, video and Teacher's Notebook sheets for this episode.
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In HIT #9, I’m Suuuuper excited to teach you how to use my Checklist Challenge! Yep…. This editing and revising tool for young writers will make your life so much easier! You will come away from this episode with your own free Checklist Challenge to use with students in grades four through twelve, tips on TPA (teach, practice, apply), the how to’s of clear grading of writing revisions, and so much more!
Visit https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach for blog, video and Teacher's Notebook sheets for this episode.
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach....In HIT #8, I present two spelling practice tools that you can re-create for your students (or get one for free here!). I teach how I use my signature Spelling Notebook classify and categorize spelling words with similar phonetic components, word families, and structural analysis rules. Then I teach how to use my free tool, The Six S Spelling Secret Packet, to practice challenging words each week before a spelling test.
Visit https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach for blog, video and Teacher's Notebook sheets for this episode.
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach #7, I’m excited to bring you some tips for young writers, specifically descriptive paragraph writing for elementary students. I use one of my month-long downloadable books to teach a simple outlining approach called The Paragraph House Outline. Of course, any writing project needs to have all of the elements that a student needs to learn in order to complete that project, so I will walk you through the outline, writing, opening sentence, closing sentence, adverb addition, CAVES (five parts of a sentence), and simplified Checklist Challenge—all using a darling project of describing a character from the Beast’s castle.
Visit https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach for blog, video and Teacher's Notebook sheets for this episode.
Welcome to HIT #6! In this episode, I teach you how I teach an amazing story writing method I call Twice-Told Tales (formerly Piggy-Back Stories). I developed this method and began testing it nearly twenty years ago with local students—and now it is in several of my print books (Meaningful Composition) and many, many month-long downloadable books. Today I walk the listener/viewer through an entire beginning lesson of the TTT, focusing on fourth through eighth graders.
Visit https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach for blog, video and Teacher's Notebook sheets for this episode.
Welcome back to HIT #5! In this episode, I use one of my month-long downloadable books, Tools and Tricks II with a given source from the story of Pinocchio to explain how I teach outlining from given sources to students in grades two through six (and higher for remediation purposes). You get the three paragraph passage, outlining lines, student instructions, symbol box, and more to use with your own students!
Visit https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach for blog, video and Teacher's Notebook sheets for this episode.
This week’s HIT episode is chock full of helps in how to teach beginning research writing to students in fourth through eighth grades! And…is uses animals of the jungle (based on the book/movie, The Jungle Book).
Visit https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach for blog, video and Teacher Notebook sheets information on this episode!
In HIT#3, I cover many important topics in teaching young students how to write from a source (in a sentence-by-sentence format with our darling writing boxes!) and how to put in strong describers.
Visit https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach for blog, video and Teacher's Notebook sheets for this episode.
In HIT #2, I taught how to teach a very short story for fifth through twelfth grade students (adjustable according to length assigned and story elements required). I also taught about the infamous to/two/too issues.
See https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach/ for all the information related to this episode with Teacher's Notebook sheets, video and blog.
Welcome to HIT---How I Teach.... Each week in this innovative audiocast/videocast, I bring you tips, tricks, and techniques for teaching writing, language arts, grammar, and more (to grades two through twelve) drawing upon my 100+ curriculum books totaling over 50,000 pages.
In this premiere episode,
Visit https://languageartsladyblog.com/howiteach for blog, video and Teacher's Notebook sheet information!