This is a sponsored post by Timberdoodle.  All of the opinions are my own.

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This year our homeschool has been a bit more streamlined than it ever has before.  Less fluid and more structured.

Some this has to do with life circumstances.  I need the schedule to be more predictable so I can arrange meetings and work hours around what is known and planned.  Some of this has to do with the ages and grades of my children.  Older students have greater demands on their school days, a larger amount of studying is required for say, Chemistry, versus a nature walk for a second grader.  Some of this has to do with starting a co-op.  The teachers have a say in our plans now and those needs must be met.

At any rate, I have gone more by the book this year and less by the weather and the season and the time of day.  (You can bet the lack of freedom is a burden to my freedom loving soul.)  The must haves and the have to and the be here at this time were never my favorites.

This has meant that I have had less time to explore some of the just for fun options.  However, there was a small vocabulary enriching book that Timberdoodle asked for reviewers for and I jumped right on it because I thought it might fit perfectly well with the class I am teaching for co-op.

It’s called 101 Doodle Definitions – and it’s a vocabulary builder.  Basically, it’s a list of words.  But, more than that, it’s a creative way to help the words stick in the students’ minds.  Each word is on one page and there’s a step by step small drawing that helps to give a clue about the word’s definition.  The definition is one per page too.  There’s a space on each page for the student to draw the word as they memorize it.

 

 

However, I am using the book differently this year. I’m teaching a co-op literature and writing class.  On the first day of class I gave each student a small gift – wrapped too, just for fun.  It was a tiny notebook.  I told the students about several writers who loved and collected words – like Carl Sandburg who gathered words on bits of paper and wrote tiny poems and phrases on scraps and carried them in all his pockets and bags and overalls.  And about Jack London, who loved new words and when he was learning one he would often write it down and hang the words around his room until he felt he had really integrated the word into his vocabulary.  And I explained that this was our word book – a small way to collect words, to fall in love with words and to store them and to savor them.  I invited them to add any words they heard throughout their week – in their novels, from the mouths of their parents or their friends, in a movie.  And, each week in class we get out our notebooks, we share any words we’ve added on our own, and we learn a new one together.

Cacophony.  Quagmire – a personal favorite.  Supine.

We do the drawings together and we look for ways to use those words during the week and during class.  Sometimes we review our words – if we’re reading the Hobbit, I might ask – “How can you use the words Gandalf and quagmire in the same sentence?” or “Give me a sentence using Percy Shelley and cacophony together.”

 

 

It’s been a lot of fun, a very tiny time commitment, and paying great rewards for such a small burst – and the words are all right there ready for me each week.  One step I do not have to prepare or plan.

It’s a part of Timberdoodle’s 5th grade curriculum kit but I’m using it for high schoolers and I think it’s a great fit.

I’ve already used cacophony in my own conversation twice in the last week.  I think once in a blog post recently even.

 

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