Gemma’s Written Narrations: Weeks 6 through 9

In case you’re wondering what a child’s first written narrations look like, here are my daughter’s 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th narrations. She’s 8 years old, in “3rd grade.” She does one written narration per week (usually on Mondays - I wanted to make sure they got done early in the week), and she prefers to do them about her geography book: The World by the Fireside. I told her that each narration must be in cursive and must be at least 3 sentences (one sentence per grade level).

This one was not from The World By the Fireside. It was from Our Island Story. “When she died, her dog st-st-stayed with her. Wah😢Sorry I got ‘amotional.’ ”

Below, her narration about The Great Bat was written on another piece of paper, cut out, and glued diagonally (on purpose) because, she said, in all of the books she reads about kids who go to school, there are pages that look like that.

Gemma with a Supreme Court Justice

Last night, Gemma met Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The Supreme Court judge was literally across the street from our house, so we couldn’t not go. She was doing a book signing for her new children’s book Just Ask! In it, children with various special needs introduce themselves and explain what makes them different. Children are often told not to stare at someone with special needs, however Sotomayor said children should be taught to just ask. Because I teach lots of students who have special needs, and lots of students who don’t, I see a big need for teaching all students how to talk to each other about disabilities. My objective here had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with how I continually try to show Gemma that 1)there are so many things she can be when she grows up, and 2)no person is off limits.

Raising Lifelong Learners Podcast

Today I got to be a guest on one of my favorite podcasts - Raising Lifelong Learners. Talking with Colleen Kessler was so much fun, and I hope our conversation will encourage homeschool moms at the start of this new school year (and new not-back-to-school year). To listen to the episode click here.