Hello Book Bums families!
We hope your transition back to school routines is going smoothly. If your days are busy with carpools, sports practice, and other activities, remember the world around us offers many chances to discover interesting words and talk about language. Today in the newsletter we're thinking about words at the post office and fast food restaurants!
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Word of the Week
philatelist (fil-at-ah-list) noun/person, place, or thing - one who collects or studies stamps
Sophie started to become a philatelist after she got some beautiful international stamps on postcards from traveling friends.
Literary Calendar
• September 1st is World Letter Writing Day.
• It was founded in 2014 to encourage people to take a break from social media and write a letter to someone.
• Letter writing is a fun way to practice handwriting and composition skills and to stay in touch. Add to the fun by providing stickers or colorful paper.
• You could even make a trip to the post office (or USPS.com) to pick some fun stamps for your letters.
From our Bookshelves
Whether you’re looking for the perfect baby shower gift or you just want to share some genuine love and laughter with those little ones you adore, Laugh-Out-Loud Baby by Tony Johnston is a delightful children’s book that celebrates all things giggles and guffaws. The down-home, southern text and the quirky, endearing art, make this book a treasure of a read aloud. Explore alliteration, rhyme, and lots of synonyms for laughter and soon your home, too, will be brimming with love.
Tips for Readers and Writers
To explore words more deeply, consider examining words within particular categories. For example, you could launch a family investigation of all things “laughter” by reading Laugh-Out-Loud Baby and noting the many words the author used for laughter such as guffaw, mirth, and snorts. How many more words can you think of? What new words can you add when you check a thesaurus? When studied in categories, words are often more easily remembered. Make a list of words and challenge yourself to use them in your speech and in your writing.
If you have an Audible account, you might want to check out Building a Better Vocabulary by Kevin Flanigan. He’s the one that taught me about how words can get lost in our “mental junk drawers” but when we organize them into categories, our brains can more easily “chunk” them into meaning-based groupings for quick access. If you’re striving to expand your own vocabulary, this book is a great place to begin.
Tips for Families
Often, we teachers, in our zest for promoting all things books, zap all the fun right out of reading. Already, some of my students are saying, “My teacher makes us write our minutes in our reading logs. How many minutes can I write in mine, after tutoring?” Ugh. Now, reading logs are great if you choose them for yourself, but when the reading log is kept to prove that you did something (which implies that it’s not something you’d actually want to do, right?), it can be downright discouraging.
Here's an article about the negative impact reading logs can have on kids’ recreational reading habits:
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/06/are-reading-logs-ruining-reading/485372/
Do not require a certain number of minutes for reading at home every night. Simply provide books that your kids want to read. Again, we read because we’re readers, not because we are required to read for 15 or 20 minutes every night and then have someone sign off, proving that we did the undesirable thing.
Always have the next great book at the ready. Put a variety of books in the bathroom, in the car, on the bedside table, and on the coffee table. When kids finish a book they loved, have another book ready to fill the void. Reading is a habit, and not having a next book can make it difficult to stay in that reading zone.
Remember that extrinsic rewards diminish a love for reading. Do not provide incentives for reading. Let the reading BE the reward.
Wordology Workshop
• Remember that the root phil means love.
• You find it in this week's Word of the Week, philatelist, as well as many other words, even the name of an American city.
• How many phil words can your family think of?
Practical Grammar
Why no capitals and periods, McDonalds? You cater to the younger crowd. Could we please forego the artistic/creative license and strive, instead, to ensure our students are seeing standard English? Help a teacher out, please! I’m not really lovin’ it.
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