Tag: Homeschooling

Poetry Tuesday

Advanced Poetry Lesson: Ballads Week 2

Hannah Spuler

Let’s write some poetry!

This Tuesday and last we’ve been learning about Ballads!

woman-2887280_1920 (1)

A. Introduction to Ballads
Ballads are regular, repetitive, and musical. Most songs you hear on the radio would be considered a ballad of one kind or another.

B. What is a Ballad?

  1. It often has four lines per group, or stanza. (The example below actually has 6 lines per stanza, and that’s okay too)
  2. The 1st and 3rd line in each stanza has four accents, or stresses
  3. The 2nd and 4th lines have either 3 stresses or 4 stresses, but it needs to be the same throughout the whole poem. (see example below)
  4. Ballads rhyme. Often the 1st and 3rd lines rhyme and the 2nd and 4th lines rhyme. (This is called an ABAB pattern). This is flexible, but again, the pattern needs to be the same throughout the whole poem!
  5. Repetition is important in a ballad. Sometimes a poet will make the last line of each stanza the same.
  6. Ballads often tell some kind of story, often a story about how someone died.
  7. Example of stresses: (Read the capital letters in the lines below a little louder than the other letters.)

The SUN was SHINing ON the SEA
See how there are 4 stresses?
SHINing with ALL its MIGHT
And then 3? 

C. Ballad Example

Bridal Ballad

The ring is on my hand,
And the wreath is on my brow;
Satins and jewels grand
Are all at my command,
And I am happy now.

And my lord he loves me well;
But, when first he breathed his vow,
I felt my bosom swell—
For the words rang as a knell,
And the voice seemed his who fell
In the battle down the dell,
And who is happy now.

But he spoke to re-assure me,
And he kissed my pallid brow,
While a reverie came o’er me,
And to the church-yard bore me,
And I sighed to him before me
(Thinking him dead D’Elormie),
“Oh, I am happy now!”

And thus the words were spoken,
And this the plighted vow;
And, though my faith be broken,
And, though my heart be broken,
Here is a ring, as token
That I am happy now!—
Behold the golden token
That proves me happy now!

Would God I could awaken!
For I dream I know not how,
And my soul is sorely shaken
Lest an evil step be taken,—
Lest the dead who is forsaken
May not be happy now.

~Edgar Allen Poe

D. Write your ballad!
Are you ready to write your ballad? Great! Come up with your story and write it in verse form, following the guidelines above. If you’re happy with it, remember to share it on my Facebook page or in the comments!


Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…

Poetry Activity (for kids, adults, and everyone in between): Acrostic Poem

Poem Study:  The Sun Has Set by Emily Jane Brontë, or Bed in Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson

Fun List Mondays

Fun List Monday, July 23

Hannah Spuler

If You Could Only Take 3 and a 1/2 Things With You On A Desert Island, They Would Be…

A knife? A pot for boiling water? A phone? 1/2 a bottle of suncreen? 1/2 a juice box? If you were stuck on a desert island, you probably wouldn’t need toothpaste. But what would you need? I can’t wait to hear your ideas!

edit desert sea-3131810_1920 copy

Write a list with me! Every Monday I will post a fun list. Fill out your list and enjoy it by yourself, share it on my Facebook page. Not convinced? Read about how lists encourage better writing here.

Like this activity? See other Fun List Mondays here!

Furry Thursday

Furry Thursday, No. 5

Hannah Spuler

Can you guess the animal based on the clues?
Smash up science and English parts of speech together with this guessing game!

adjectives: fluffy, crafty, quick, frisky, playful, sly, fierce, protective, bushy-tailed, beautiful
verbs: bound, hunt, bark, play, run,
nouns: ears, coat
biomes: diverse: grasslands, deserts, forests, tundra

Think you know which animal?
Click here for the answer!

Simplified definitions:
Adjective: a describing word, placed before a noun (or pronoun)
Noun: a person, place, thing, or idea
Verb: an action word
Biome: the type of environment where living things make their homes, a habitat (ex: desert, rainforest, tundra)
herbivore: plant-eater
carnivore: meat-eater
omnivore: eats both plants and meat

Furry Thursday rabbit

Freewrite Wednesday

Freewrite Wednesday: Feelings

Hannah Spuler

Ready to free your writing? Let’s do a freewrite together!

edit laughter happy-286152_1920

Write about a time you’ve had a strong feeling.


Questions to get you started:
What happened to make you feel that way? What did you do once you experienced that feeling? What did you want to do? Do you think you might feel that way again?

Set your timer for 10 minutes and write, write, write!

About Freewrites: A freewrite is exactly what it sounds like: free! Use a freewrite to practice channeling thoughts from your mind to the paper. Never done a freewrite? Learn more in my Guide to Freewriting 

Poetry Tuesday

Poetry Activity: Alliteration Poem

Hannah Spuler

Interested in poetry?
Learn about alliteration using this poetry activity for kids, adults, and everyone in-between!

sun
(photo credit: Hannah Spuler)

A. Introduction to Alliteration:
Have you ever tried to say a tongue-twister? Can you say this one?

She sells seashells by the seashore.

Think it’s difficult to say this singularly silly saying?

When two or more words start with the same letter or sound, it’s called an alliteration.
(I just adore amazing alliterations! Don’t you?)

Here are some more examples:

1. Alexander the armadillo ate absolutely amazing apples and ants.
2. Beehives buzz and babies blow bubbles.
3. Caroline cried because she couldn’t catch cantaloupes.
4. Daryl didn’t do anything daring, did he?

These are silly examples, but alliteration can also be used beautifully in poetry to make it sing.

B. A Sunny Alliteration Poem
Our activity today will use alliterations to write a poem about the sun.

  1. Write down all the words you can think of that have to do with the sun. For example:
    hot
    big
    shines
    beautiful
    etc.
    Bonus points if you think of “s” words!
  2. Now see if any of those sun words can be changed to a word that starts with “s.” For example, the word “hot” can become “simmering,” and the word “beautiful” can become “spectacular.” Change as many as you can without help.
  3. (optional) Now see if you can change even more by using a thesaurus!
    What’s a thesaurus?? A thesaurus is a big book full of words that helps you find a different word that means the same thing. If I wanted to find another word for hot, I would look it up in my thesaurus and I might find words like scorching, sizzling, or boiling. If you don’t have a thesaurus on your bookshelf, you can use an online thesaurus. Type in your word and see what you find!
    http://www.thesaurus.com/
  4. Okay, do you have your list of s words that have to do with the sun?
    It might look a little like this:


    hot                   scorching, sizzling
    beautiful    spectacular, superb, stunning
    big               substantial

     

  5. Now we write the poem!
    A few notes:

    ~This poem doesn’t have to rhyme or have a meter. It can just be free-form (See my example if that didn’t make sense. Notice how my poem doesn’t rhyme?)

    ~In this kind of poem, the first word of each line does not have to be capitalized. Use capital letters the way you would use them in a normal sentence.

    ~Each line can have one word, or many words. Play with the spacing! You have complete freedom.

    ~Not every word has to begin with “s.” If you need a few extra words to tie it together, that’s okay!

     

  6. Below is an example of what your poem could look like. Mine is pretty short, having used a short word list, but feel free to make yours longer! You could make it silly, super simple, or more serious. Experiment with different groups of words too. The sky’s the limit!


Sun
Spectacular,
striking,
sizzling,
stunning,
shining on
my skin,
shining in
my soul—
sun.
~Hannah Spuler

Pleased with your poem? Share it in the comments or post it on my Facebook page so we can all read and enjoy them!

 

Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…

Poem Study: Bear in There, by Shel Silverstein

Advanced Poetry Lesson: Ballads, (Week 1 of 2)

 

Poetry Tuesday

Poem Study: Bear in There

Hannah Spuler

Let’s read a poem and study it together!

edit polar-bear-404314_1920

Not sure how to study a poem? Here are some ideas! Choose one or all of these:

  1. Read aloud and enjoy the poem
  2. Neatly write out your favorite stanza for handwriting practice or…
  3. Copy and paste the poem into your word processor and print it out
  4. Draw a picture about the poem

  5. Circle or underline the alliterations!

  6. Read more about the author’s life
  7. Share with someone you love <3


Bear in There

There’s a polar bear
In our Frigidaire–
He likes it ’cause it’s cold in there.
With his seat in the meat
And his face in the fish
And his big hairy paws
In the buttery dish,
He’s nibbling the noodles,
He’s munching the rice,
He’s slurping the soda,
He’s licking the ice.
And he lets out a roar
If you open the door.
And it gives me a scare
To know he’s in there–
That polary bear
In our Fridgitydaire.

by Shel Silverstein

Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…

Poetry Activity (for kids, adults, and everyone in between): Alliteration Poem

Advanced Poetry Lesson: Ballads, (Week 1 of 2)

Poetry Tuesday

Advanced Poetry Lesson: Ballads

Hannah Spuler

Let’s write some poetry!

The next two Tuesdays we’ll be learning about ballads!

walrus and the carpenter
Lewis Carroll’s Walrus and the Carpenter

A. Introduction to Ballads
I love ballads. When I learned about ballads for the first time, I had already been writing them for years without knowing it. They’re regular, repetitive, and musical. Most songs you hear on the radio would be considered a ballad of one kind or another.

     Fun fact: Did you know that rap is actually a contemporary ballad?

B. What is a Ballad?

  1. It often has four lines per group, or stanza. (The example below actually has 6 lines per stanza, and that’s okay too)
  2. The 1st and 3rd line in each stanza has four accents, or stresses
  3. The 2nd and 4th lines have either 3 stresses or 4 stresses, but it needs to be the same throughout the whole poem. (see example below)
  4. Ballads rhyme. Often the 1st and 3rd lines rhyme and the 2nd and 4th lines rhyme. (This is called an ABAB pattern). This is flexible, but again, the pattern needs to be the same throughout the whole poem!
  5. Repetition is important in a ballad. Sometimes a poet will make the last line of each stanza the same.
  6. Ballads often tell some kind of story, often a story about how someone died.
  7. Example of stresses: (Read the capital letters in the lines below a little louder than the other letters.)

The SUN was SHINing ON the SEA
See how there are 4 stresses?
SHINing with ALL its MIGHT
And then 3? 

C. Ballad Example

Walrus and the Carpenter
(lines 1-18), from Through the Looking Glass

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright —
And this was odd, because it was
 The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done —
“It’s very rude of him,” she said,
“To come and spoil the fun.”

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead —
There were no birds to fly.

~Lewis Carroll 

D. Write your ballad!
Are you ready to write your ballad? Great! Come up with your story and write it in verse form, following the guidelines above. If you’re happy with it, remember to share it on my Facebook page or in the comments!


Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…

Poetry Activity (for kids, adults, and everyone in between): Alliteration Poem

Poem Study: Bear in There, by Shel Silverstein

Furry Thursday

Furry Thursday, No. 4

Hannah Spuler

Can you guess the animal based on the clues?
Smash up science and English parts of speech together with this guessing game!

adjectives: graceful, large, faithful, fast, furry, affectionate, elegant, shiny, heavy, strong, friend, frisky
verbs: gallop, canter, neigh, ride, pull, graze
nouns: mane, tail, race, show
biome: mostly Grasslands, will adapt to a variety of biomes

Think you know which animal?
Click here for the answer!

Simplified definitions:
Adjective: a describing word, placed before a noun (or pronoun)
Noun: a person, place, thing, or idea
Verb: an action word
Biome: the type of environment where living things make their homes, a habitat (ex: desert, rainforest, tundra)
herbivore: plant-eater
carnivore: meat-eater
omnivore: eats both plants and meat

Furry Thursday chipmunk

Freewrite Wednesday

Freewrite Wednesday: Your Country or… ???

Hannah Spuler

Ready to free your writing? Let’s do a freewrite together!

Your country or this one?

If you had a choice, would you rather live in this country or another one? Which country would you want to live in and why?


Questions to get you started:
What does your choice country look like? What are the good things about it? Why did you choose this one over a different one? What are some possible struggles you might have in this country? Who might you meet there?

Set your timer for 10 minutes and write, write, write!

About Freewrites: A freewrite is exactly what it sounds like: free! Use a freewrite to practice channeling thoughts from your mind to the paper. Never done a freewrite? Learn more in my Guide to Freewriting 

Poetry Tuesday

Poetry Activity: Fill-in-the-Blank Poem

Hannah Spuler

Interested in poetry?
Combine rhyme and meter using this fill-in-the-blank poetry activity for kids, adults, and everyone in-between!

fill in the blank poem

A. Review: Rhyme

Remember the lesson about rhyming?
These are examples of words that rhyme:

stop, hop, lop, plop

Need a refresher on rhyming? Click here.

B. Review: Meter

Remember the lesson about meter?
Here are two lines that have four beats, or stresses:

Twinkle, Twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.

Need a refresher on meter? Click here.

C. Fill-in-the-blank poem

Below is a fill-in-the-blank poem where the basic idea and structure is there and you get to fill in the blanks! This poem has a strong meter as well as an AABB rhyme scheme (lines 1 and 2 rhyme with each other and lines 3 and 4 rhyme). If the word is at the end of the line, make sure you keep the rhyme scheme. Give it a try!

(Title)

My       (noun)       is/are cold
And my       (noun)       is/are old.
My       (noun)       is/are hot
But my       (noun)       is/are not.

My      (noun)       is/are blue,
My      (noun)       too,
But not my       (noun)     ,
Because it’s/they’re       (noun)        .

I have a       (noun)       
And he/she/it has a      (noun)      .
I/We        (verb)       outside
But I/we        (verb)       inside.

My      (noun)        is tall,
My      (noun)        is small,
And that is all,
My friend.

The End.

 

Simplified definitions:
Noun: a person, place, thing, or idea
Verb: an action word


Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…

Poem Study: The Brook, by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Advanced Poetry Lesson: Odes, Week 2