How to Keep Language Arts Skills Sharp During the Summer

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How to Keep Language Arts Skills Sharp During the Summer

Slurpees, sunshine, swimming, sunbathing, relaxing, travel, camping, barbecues, bike rides, fireworks, friends, and LANGUAGE ARTS! Of course, summer vacation might include some of these foot-loose and fancy-free things, but it’s also an opportunity to keep parents engaged in their child’s learning over the summer months.

Remember, the key to success in whatever you want to do is setting goals for yourself. Encourage families to set short and long-term academic goals for the summer. (I've included a great bonus lesson on Setting Goals at the end of this post!)

Here are three great ways to keep your child's Language Arts skills sharp this summer:

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Creating a Summer Bucket List

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Creating a Summer Bucket List

As eager as your students are for the school year to end, it won’t be long until they are actually bored during their summer break. Yes, I said “bored.” Help your students stay focused and creative while they gear-up for that day with this fun and creative classroom activity.

In this blog, I will share an activity that will teach students a valuable lesson as they create their own Summer Bucket List. The catch is that they will create it while working in small groups. As always, you can do as much or as little as you like with this idea. Here’s how to get started.

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Writing Time: Let's start a blog!

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Writing Time: Let's start a blog!

Journal Writing is an activity that is implemented very early in the Shurley English curriculum. Students are taught how to create a written journal to record their thoughts and feelings. Then, throughout the school year, they are encouraged to respond to specific prompts in their personal journals. (If you’re wondering about the benefits of journaling, please check out my previous blog, “The Value of Journal Writing.”)

Today, I’d like for you to think beyond the written journal and consider developing a classroom wall blog. This type of activity affords you an opportunity to support your classroom instruction and teach your students how to become responsible writers.

To begin, here’s a blog for you and your students to read:

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Teacher Toolbox: Simple ways to stay motivated

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Teacher Toolbox: Simple ways to stay motivated

If you’ve ever found yourself in the middle of a tumultuous situation like a rip-roaring, indoor recess due to inclement weather, or a rigorous test preparation right before a holiday, you know how it feels when you need a break! You need it, and you need it NOW!

Now is when you have to dig a little bit deeper into your teacher toolbox and pull out that shiny tool that you know will give you the extra boost needed to get you over the hump.

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Writing Toolbox: Strategies for building better sentences

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Writing Toolbox: Strategies for building better sentences

Whether you teach language arts in the school classroom or your home classroom, you have to teach your kids how to write, right? To be clear, I don’t mean the mechanical parts of writing: holding the pencil correctly, positioning the notebook paper properly, and so on. I mean the actual generation of topics that kids know about and want to write about. I mean the composition of clear, concise sentences that convey what the writer is thinking. It would be nice if kids were natural writers and could pluck ideas (and the words needed to express those ideas) out of their brains at the first sign of a prompt, but most of the time, this is not the case.

What kid writers need is

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A Guide to Verb Tenses

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A Guide to Verb Tenses

Verb tenses can be challenging for students and adults! In an effort to reinforce correct verb tense usage, why not play a little game? Let’s get started with a quick review of verb tenses.

Tense means time. So, that means that the verb in the sentence actually lets the reader know the time of the action.

There are three basic verb tenses that show when an action takes place:

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The Importance of Practice

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The Importance of Practice

I have never taken a class in martial arts, but I have certainly enjoyed watching Bruce Lee’s moves in his action-packed films! Let’s face it! The guy was physically amazing, but more than that, he had a way with words!

Lee was more than just a famous martial artist! He was also an actor and a philosopher with a long list of inspirational quotes tagged to his name. Many of his famous quotes are still being used today to trigger personal growth, and one of my favorites says:

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Micro-comprehension: A Foundation of Words

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Micro-comprehension: A Foundation of Words

In an earlier blog post, I pointed out that early reading might best focus on micro-comprehension strategies before exploring the macro-comprehension kinds of questions that are found in most reading programs. But why? To start with, a reader won’t have clear macro-comprehension without clear micro-comprehension. A deep and wide vocabulary makes the micro-comprehension much more accurate!

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Group Work: How to Communicate Effectively

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Group Work: How to Communicate Effectively

If I asked you to list the top five sources of stress in your life, your answers might include things like money, work, relationships, health, and time. These common sources are no surprise, but have you ever thought about the stress that is created when you attempt to communicate about any source of stress?

During some recent research, I noticed that

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Is a picture really worth a thousand words?

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Is a picture really worth a thousand words?

In a word…YES! If you are seeking a great writing prompt, look no further than a picture book, a local art gallery, or a collection of great works of art from one of those coffee table display books.

When I was a kid, we used to

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