The Writing Menu

Sorry you didn't hear from me last week.  The stomach flu hit the two youngest and then myself on Friday-the afternoon that I had to take my proctored final exam.  I have no idea what I wrote, I just wanted out of there.  I got a B, so either he was very generous, or I didn't do as badly as I thought.  I hope to get an A in the class, but my term paper has to be graded yet.  In my stupid music class, I got a B for a final grade.  That guy wanted everything listed in your essay that was in the 60 pages of reading and marked off if it wasn't-and you only had 450 words to do it in.  I thought I was doing poorly, until I realized that my 70-80% was above average from the rest of the class.  This easy humanities class was very difficult indeed!!

Princess came down with the flu bug today and Bug-a-bug is now complaining of a tummy ache.  With school interrupted for almost three weeks we really need to get cracking this week.  I just finished the writing menu for the girls for the week.  You'll notice that the dinner choices are weird.  I'm always making up weird things when they ask what's for dinner, so that's a little joke of ours.  I decided not to focus on writing skills this week, just introduce them to the writing menu.  I used our history, science and geography lessons for the appetizers and main dishes.  I used some items I found in the book If You're Trying to Teach Kids to How to Write ....you've gotta have this book by Marjorie Frank.  I got it years ago and it has great creative writing ideas.

Here's their menu:
Your Writing Menu




Appetizers-you may pick any two to do

• Cheese sticks-Name three kinds of rocks (5pts)

• Nachos-Name three kinds of sedimentary rocks (5pts)

• Buffalo Wings-Identify the word territory (5pts)

• Blooming Onion-Identify the Treaty of Paris (5pts)



Main Course-you may pick any one to write about (25pts)

• Fried Frog Lips-Pick an animal that lives in Australia and draw a picture of it. Write a paragraph about the animal and tell why you would or wouldn’t want it for a pet.

• Monkey Butt Pie-Pretend that you live in Australia in the Outback. Write a list of five Australian words that you would use. Then write a paragraph about living in the Outback.



Dessert-you may choose one to write about (10pts)

• Ice Cream Sundae-Write a shape poem

• Apple Pie-Make an invitation for a friend of yours to come on a trip to outer space

Hope that this goes well with the girls.  As we get more into it, I plan on adding more choices for them. 
 
Have a wonderful week!