Make Your Own Grammar Bingo

Under the guise of trying to make grammar 'fun', I  created a grammar bingo this past Monday. I'm sure there is something already out there that I could buy but I wanted something now. I thought I'd share what I did in case anyone could use the same.

I first went here to 5x5 Bingo Card Maker to make my own card. You can put in 25 words. I put in the 8 parts of speech over and over until all 25 where full. (Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, Verb, Adverb, Conjunction, Interjection, Preposition). It will randomly make you a card. I changed the 'free space' into another part of speech spot. I then randomly generated several cards, printing in between on cardstock. Yes, it prints all those words at the bottom. Doesn't matter, I just cut out my cards. I personally left an 1" on the left so I could punch holes and keep the cards in my 3-ring binder.

Next I looked for a concise list of words for each part of speech. Difficult to do for some since there can be upwards of 800 words on a part of speech. I randomly chose words and put them together on a paper. You can print it from the PDF document below:

Parts of Speech

I plan to highlight the words I call on the list, making sure to call from each part randomly.  I can always print out a new list for when we've crossed off all the words but I imagine by then, she'll know them perfectly!

We used our set yesterday. It was a bit harder to describe what conjunction and prepositions were so we watched the Schoolhouse Rock Conjunction video and Grammar Rock's Preposition video. Be forewarned though, the catchy little tunes will get stuck in your head.

If this works out to be a fun way to learn, I may be doing a Types of Sentences one next!

Things Have Changed

I read this today:

British Government Spells End of 'i before e' Rule

Published - Jun 20 2009 11:54PM CDT by Associated Press

It's a spelling mantra that generations of schoolchildren have learned _ "i before e, except after c."
But new British government guidance tells teachers not
to pass on the rule to students,
because there are too many exceptions.
The "Support For Spelling" document, which is being sent to thousands of primary schools,
says the rule "is not worth teaching" because it doesn't account for
words like 'sufficient,' 'veil' and 'their.'
Jack Bovill of the Spelling Society, which advocates simplified spelling,
said Saturday he agreed with the decision.
But supporters say the ditty has value because it is one of the few
language rules that most people remember.

This reminds me of a discussion I had recently with another homeschool mom, about all the school information that has changed since we were in school. This spring I was studying with the teen for her ACT and I was correcting her on the right way to use commas. The ACT study book insisted I was WRONG! The rule used to be if you wrote a list of 3 (or more) words, you used commas after the first ones but not after the next to last word. IE: I want Jack, Jill and Peter to come to my party. (after Jill, no comma.) Now they're throwing in commas left and right.

Remember in typing class how you always had to hit the space bar 2 times inbetween sentences? Nope. It's faux pas now. Not advised. And now you can even start sentences with the words AND and BUT! What is the world coming to?

Either I or DH read an article recently about a school district some where in the US that allows kids taking the SAT or ACT to use texting abbreviations in their answers. I can't really think of what those would be because I'm not as savvy as my texting teen dd but can you imagine that? Making it easier for the kids with the excuse that they 'know the abbreviations better and we shouldn't penalize them for using that.' They use things like: RLY meaning “really”; R, meaning “are”; Y meaning “why”; UR meaning "your"; and IDK, meaning “I don’t know.” I just don't understand this logic of 'dumbing down' things for our kids. They're not going to be able to compete in this world with a subpar education.

It amazes me the amount of dd's friends who text and don't know the difference between there, their and they're, its and it's or your and you're. My dd is especially 'into' words and spelling so maybe she notices it more than others who don't care about words as much.

It seems to me we're raising a generation of lazy talkers. I'll admit I do text with friends and the teen using abbreviations sometimes, just because I'm a talker and want to fit as many words into my 160 letter spots as I can. But in normal life, and typing emails and such, I use correct spellings and punctuation (as best as I can remember it). We have a generation of teens that still don't understand what things need capitalizing, or the meaning of basic words. There are many words that are in our way of speaking that were not correct a long time ago. Funner vs. More Fun is one example, Ain't is another. It has actually made its way into the dictionary!

Since I like learning I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that there are people in this world that don't particularly prefer learning and are content to stay in their level of understanding without an urge to better themselves. Not that I know it all, by any stretch of the imagination. I just like to discover new things, new words, new experiences. This is one thing I love about homeschooling. We can do more spelling, more math, whatever we need to make sure our kids get the basics or even a higher than rudimentary level of learning. And if they're struggling in something, we can keep going over it until they're proficient and aren't left behind. I've read articles saying the bigger your list of usable vocabulary, the more intelligent you sound to prospective employers and potential mates. I tell my teen this all the time.

I'm getting so confused! What changes will come next? They'll start telling me that 2+2 is 5?

Art Turns Into Science

The girls are working on a dress for the little one as a combined art project this week. Teen has been weeping and rejoicing over ever aspect, especially putting in the zipper. They're doing the whole thing without a pattern. Just eyeballing it and lots of try ons. It's an experiment.

But the dress is not done yet so I'll share that later. I wanted to tell how our sewing art lesson turned into an impromptu science lesson. Look what dd found in the sewing tray (the thingie attached to the sewing machine that holds the different foots, small screwdriver, etc...)

Lovely isn't it! Needless to say, there was mass murder screaming, arguing, yelling for me (I happened to be in the bathroom), accusing me of taking my time, and wide-eyed disbelief that I wanted to catch it in a jar for observation. I'm a homeschool mom, what can I say? lol

Jumping Spider (Family Salticidae)
His legs are an inch long each, and his body is another 1/2" itself. He's a BIG sucker.

P.S. Now dds are arguing about the benefits of Shakespeare (I'm sure you have things like this going on in your house.)

Little one: Shakespeare is stupid.
Teen: You're stupid!
Me: No more saying stupid okay?
Teen: Well, she can't say that about Shakespeare, its just, its bad, its just not right. You can't say that about Shakespeare.
Little one: But they're poking eyes out in this book I'm reading!
Me: What the heck are you reading?
Little one: It's called 'Top Ten Shakespeare Stories'
(It's a Scholastic book by Terry Deary)
Teen: Well still, it's not allowed.
Little one: Why not?
Teen: He's, well he's just Shakespeare and you can't.

Ahhh, I love my children.