Journal entry—trip to Spring Lake

I was really excited on reading this newest journal entry from my kiddo. After we talked at length last week about writing paragraphs that are not only grammatically correct but also interesting it would seem that he put some effort into exactly that art form. I love the varied sentence lengtt, and I love seeing him spell words like couch, beach, night, and aunt correctly all on his own. Who needs spelling drills? Even better, I love that he's developing these skills in what I would consider to be a very authentic way. And if this sounds like a proud parent moment, well I guess that's probably what it is.

The picture is probably of Jon and Calvin playing in the water while other family members (maybe Oma, Opa, and me?) sit on the beach towel on the shore. He's really into the overhead viewpoint these days.

Learning writing style, and journal entries

Calvin has been writing for a while now. He started keeping his journal almost a year ago. At that time it was mostly a sentence, or even just a few words, describing an activity from the day, or sometimes a book that we'd read, and I was helping him form his sentences and sound out and spell the words. I got him started on the journal before he could read in part because he was interested in doing so—he'd noticed me keeping journals for some time by then—and also because I thought it might be empowering to be able to share his thoughts with the world at large. He enjoyed it, and I'm pretty sure the process helped him learn to read a few months later, though learning is a very fluid process, and like the proverbial chicken and egg I can't tell which drove the other—the journal the reading, or the reading the journal. And as Calvin gained his own writing legs I slowly stopped helping him with his journal, and some time early this year I left him sitting on the couch writing while I ran on the treadmill, and since that time all the entries have been entirely his—spelling, punctuation, composition, and all.

Recently he and I had a chance to talk about sentence formation and about telling stories with written words. The topic presented itself because after having read all the Oz books by L. Frank Baum we graduated to the subsequent books by Ruth Plumly Thompson, only her writing just isn't as good—it's not as clear, it's not as bright, it's not as enjoyable. We compared some of their methods for story telling, and some examples of their sentence formation as well. From there we started talking more about what makes a sentence interesting in general, and about rhythm and flow in a short work.

We explored Calvin's own journal next, and found that some entries were more fun to read than others—he found that the ones that had been short, quick, and easy to write were the least interesting to read later. Then we tried something: he wrote a quick entry about our Log Cabin Weekend trip, then asked me to help him rewrite it. I helped him by asking leading questions about the day itself, by talking about different ways to phrase the same thing, and by encouraging him to vary his sentence length. He seemed surprised by the difference between the two entries, and excited, too, as though a new window had opened in his mind, or a new door in his life.

Journal entry original:

Journal entry rewrite:

Journaling the turtles at Independence Lake

I wrote about our Independence Lake excursion in the blog journal yesterday. It was a great trip and we had a great time. My only disappoint was that, after get a-hold of nature journals and remembering to pack both them and colored pencils, it was too wet to get them out. When we got home, though, Calvin was quick to jump at the opportunity. So these are not nature illustrations the way that I had them in mind, with the two of us sitting and sketching what we see (and oh, how often will it occur that I imagine an event one way but have to be content with another outcome), but they are his images of our hike today. The first is his sketch of us eating lunch on top of a wooden lookout. The second is his sketch of the trail as seen from above. Then the jounral entry is about the organized turtle presentation part of our trip, which happened first, and I was surprised that he didn't add a picture, but if he does so in the future I will come back and add it.

Mapping Oz

This needs no other explanation, really. If you've only ever seen the movie it might not fully make sense. You'll probably recognize the yellow brick road leading from Munchkinland to the Emerald City. The rest of this picture maps the land of Oz as described throughout the books of the series as written by L. Frank Baum. I found it, just like this, on the table in our office, drawn when I wasn't looking. That's my favorite kind of art.

What I love even more about this is that I can see he understands the idea at least of how to draw north, south, east, and west, since that's how the countries are described in the books. It's fun to see learning happen in context—a make-believe context, maybe, but an authentic one to the learner.

Nate the great (a review by Calvin)