Do you hear that thunder? It’s the crash of schoolbooks slamming shut for the summer.
As a parent, you want your children to continue using their reading skills. You know there are so many wonderful books they would enjoy reading now that it is summer and the distractions are fewer. Treasures await them. Do you have a plan to make it happen?
If not, you can use mine.
A summer reading list is more fun for your tweens and teens if it’s
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On Memorial Day in America, we remember and honor those in the armed services who have given their lives in the line of duty.
Poppies are often given out on Memorial Day as a symbol of those fallen men and women. This tradition comes from the first lines of the poem “In Flanders Fields” by Lieutenant Colonel John McRae, who wrote it during World War I and was remembering his fallen friends now buried in fields far from home.
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The United States celebrates Memorial Day, a day to remember the men and women in the armed services who have given their lives for our country.
The late General Colin Powell wrote of the granite Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D. C., “At no other battle monument are people so moved, stenciling names and leaving gifts like combat boots, uniforms, sonograms, even a
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Happy Mother’s Day to you. You are so special and are doing such important work!
To honor you, I’m making available to you a free lesson from our grammar eBook Let’s Eat Fifi. There are 23 lessons in the eBook, and this is lesson 3; it’s on commas and compound sentences. The lesson includes a colorful infographic and ANSWERS. You can download it here. For free!
In addition to the free download, I’ve included four mother-related writing prompts for your students. These are appropriate for grades 5 – 12.
True story: The lily at the top of this page is from my daughter. She gave it to me for Mother’s Day about 11 years ago, and it blooms every August. In fact, it’s now an annual tradition to take my granddaughters’ pictures next to it.
*****
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SHARON’S BLOG
What does your mother mean to you?
It might be difficult to put that into words, but this writing prompt will help you with that.
No sentences necessary and you even get to be creative with color!
You can write about another significant woman in your life as well.
Ready to bless your mom?
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“There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home,” says Dorothy Gale in the movie The Wizard of Oz.
L. Frank Baum, the author of the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the other Oz books, was born in May in 1856. That’s more than 150 years ago, but his statement is still true. There’s no place like home, and there’s no place like your home.
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The end of the school year is fast approaching, and many of us believe it cannot get here soon enough. Others might be graduating students this year and are hit with feelings of pride and grief. I want to share an end-of-school-year “whew!” moment that I experienced. Has this been your experience as well?
Here’s what I wrote when my daughter was finishing her junior year:
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Let’s celebrate one of literature’s coldest motifs: ice queens.
A motif (mow TEEF) is like a symbol on steroids. It not only appears in one story but in many stories through the ages and often in stories from many countries.
A deep, dark woods is a good example of a motif. The blackened forest can be symbolic of confusion or a time of testing. What stories can you think of that include a patch of dark woods? (I’ve listed a few at the end of this prompt, but try your hand at listing some before you read mine.)
A motif can be an item (like dark woods or a magic ring), a recurring event (like being sent on a quest or conducting a contest to find a spouse), or a
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SHARON’S BLOG
An edict. A carol. A strange decoration.
What do all these have in common? They are all part of our fun Christmas prompts.
Enjoy these prompts created especially for 5th – 12th graders.
Ho, ho, ho, and away we go . . .
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You know about Dr. Seuss, and you know about the Grinch. But do you know the story behind the story?
When Ted (we know him as Dr. Seuss) was 53 years old, he was fed up with Christmas. He was tired of the noise, the constant activity, and the busy-ness, and he wished everyone would get along with each other.
His desire was that people would celebrate the joy and peacefulness of Christmas without all the hoopla detracting from it.
So what did he do? He wrote a story about it. He created a Scrooge-like creature who hates the noise and celebration of Christmas. Ted writes this in the story:
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