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Cranial Hiccups

Every once in a while and totally unintentionally my brain spews out a good idea.

You are here: Home / Archives for Homeschool / Language Arts

15 Ways to Encourage Reading

June 9, 2015 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} 7 Comments

15 Ways to Encourage Reading

Reading is truly one of the best things in the world! But how do you convince a child who would rather muck out a chicken coop or eat a bowl of brussels sprouts that reading really is fun? Reading is one of the true pleasures of life. In our age of mass culture, when so […]

Filed Under: Ingenious Ideas, Language Arts, latest Tagged With: reading

Summer Reading Reward Coupon Sheets

June 4, 2015 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} 1 Comment

Fill out these summer reading reward coupons with prizes your kids can earn for doing their summer reading charts - CranialHiccups.com

As parents, we know that reading good books comes with its own rewards like a gained knowledge and appreciation for the world and people around us. Sometimes though it’s just plain fun to have some external reward for reading, especially for kids. Here are three different summer reading reward coupon sheets that you can fill […]

Filed Under: Ingenious Ideas, Language Arts, latest, Printables

Summer Reading Charts

June 2, 2015 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} 11 Comments

FUN SUMMER READING CHARTS! Three different charts to keep kids engaged in reading new books this summer. One chart is HOW or WHERE to read a book for at least 15 minutes a day. Another tells what CHARACTER or OBJECT should be in a book. The last is for WHERE or WHAT TIME the book takes place. From CranialHiccups.com

Most kids I know LOVE charts. There’s just something about crossing off what you’ve done that makes you feel good. Summer reading charts are no exception. My kids really enjoy having a chart to help them decide what book to read next. Will it be a book about an astronaut or will it take place in […]

Filed Under: Ingenious Ideas, Language Arts, latest, Printables Tagged With: reading, Summer

Make Reading Fun for Kids

February 25, 2015 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} 6 Comments

7 ideas to make reading fun for kids

Kerry shares ideas on making reading fun for kids in this guest post for the Establish a House series. Our children spend the first two or three years at school learning how to read. After that and for the rest of their lives, they read to learn. For their success, it’s essential that they learn […]

Filed Under: Establish a House, Language Arts, latest

Creative Writing Day 10: About Me Fingerprint

November 18, 2011 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} 7 Comments

I originally saw this idea on pinterest, but the link didn’t tell how to do it so I set about figuring it out with my kids. It really is a fun way to write creatively! First we took our thumbprints. The clearest prints were not made with ink but with pencil! We colored a small […]

Filed Under: Language Arts Tagged With: writing

Creative Writing Day 9: Story Starters

November 17, 2011 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} 3 Comments

Whew! Sorry this post is up a bit late today. I was too busy yesterday (shopping, ordering Christmas cards which required an insane amount of time looking through photos to find decent ones, etc) to write today’s post. My intent was to create some printables with story starters to use for daily creative writing. Instead […]

Filed Under: Language Arts Tagged With: writing

Creative Writing Day 8: Mad Libs

November 16, 2011 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} 2 Comments

Who doesn’t remember the ‘olden’ days when all we had available to keep us busy on road trips were books to read, cassettes to listen to, and car games to play like the license plate game and madlibs. Madlibs are still fun to play! And they teach about basic parts of speech as well. For […]

Filed Under: Language Arts Tagged With: writing

Creative Writing Day 7: Ideas From Around the Web

November 15, 2011 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} Leave a Comment

Isn’t the internet a wonderful tool? With just a few clicks you can usually find an answer to a question or an idea to help you. Here are some creative writing links from around the web. Small World at Home has a set of creative writing lessons for all ages. She calls the series WordSmithery. […]

Filed Under: Language Arts Tagged With: writing

Creative Writing Day 6: Letter Writing & Fun Mail

November 13, 2011 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} Leave a Comment

Don’t you just love to get mail? I do! What a simple pleasure it is when checking my mail to find at the bottom of a stack of bills and magazines a card or letter from a friend. E-mail has caused a great decline in the handwritten note. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy reading […]

Filed Under: Language Arts Tagged With: writing

Creative Writing Day 5: Rainbow Writing

November 11, 2011 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} Leave a Comment

The idea behind creative writing is to get one to use words and express ideas in a more colorful, creative way. There should be no stress about grammar or spelling. That can come later. If those are expected to early all the joy of writing is snuffed out. Today’s project is to help children (and […]

Filed Under: Language Arts Tagged With: writing

Creative Writing Day 4: Books About Family

November 10, 2011 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} 2 Comments

This past summer as we cleaned out our school closet I came upon some treasures. Books written by my two oldest! Several years ago when we were struggling with language arts I stepped away from our regular curriculum for a while and encouraged my daughters to write books instead. It was a memorable experience. My […]

Filed Under: Language Arts Tagged With: writing

Creative Writing Day 3: Mimic a Favorite Children’s Book

November 9, 2011 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} 2 Comments

Are there certain books your children love to read or have read to them over and over and over again? Do you know why? Usually it is because the text of the book is either repetative, rhymes, or has a singsong quality to it. You can use this to your advantage in teaching creative writing […]

Filed Under: Language Arts Tagged With: writing

Creative Writing Day 2: A Little Alliteration

November 8, 2011 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} 2 Comments

Alliteration is a fun tool to use to get your children to write. In a nut shell alliteration can be used two ways: Using the same letter to begin as many words in a sentence as possible. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Using the same tonal sound repeatedly in a sentence, even […]

Filed Under: Language Arts Tagged With: writing

Creative Writing Day 1: Paint Chip Writing

November 6, 2011 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} 1 Comment

(image source) The Challenge: Pick up a paint strip sample with several shades of color on a strip. Write a story or poem that incorporates every paint color name on your paint chip sample. Be creative! If you don’t make it to the store to pick up paint samples never fear! Use the Color Palette […]

Filed Under: Language Arts Tagged With: writing

Easy Writing Activities for Summer

June 9, 2011 by Montserrat {Cranial Hiccups} 3 Comments

School is out for most people. We are taking a little break too. Not a big one as we want to keep to our year round schedule (so we’ll be off the first month after the baby is born). Whenever we take a break, we never really take a full break. There are still some […]

Filed Under: Language Arts Tagged With: english, writing

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Hello, I'm Montserrat. I'm a farmer's wife, mother of eleven, homeschooler, chocoholic, music lover, and like to play a good game of Scrabble. You can read more about me here. . .

You'll find a little bit of everything on this blog. It's my place to share all the ideas, activities, crafts, and resources that I have gathered and tried over a number of years. Feel free to browse around using the menu up top or doing a search in the box below.

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