I'm not sure if I mentioned this on my blog already, but my 6.14 year old homeschooled son and I recently conceived and started writing a *story*.
It's about a personified pencil - PencilEd (a play on "pencil head"), his severed hindquarters EraserBurt (a play on "eraser butt"), and sundry similar characters. See his post - Pencil Ed.
Anyways I came up with the initial idea (I think), we talked about it a lot, and then set to work trying to sketch the cast and storyline.
Eventually we sat down, me at my PC and my son 6 feet away at his, and I created a *shared* Google Doc so he could read along as I started typing up the ideas we had been jawboning. I kind of got into it a little but my son....he was absolutely RIVETED in his seat.
It was all he wanted to do for weeks thereafter!
"Dad, can we do some more PencilEd???", became a nagging refrain.
I did do a little more with him but then I checked out on our joint-venture completely. PencilEd was a casualty of limited time and priorities. A horrible homeschooling parent, I've been leaning more and more on edu-activities THAT DID NOT INVOLVE ME.
But in hindsight my negligence looks like a masterstroke. One day a couple of weeks ago the 6 year old Prince sat down and continued the story all on his own. He implored me to take a look at it more than a few times but I never did - until just the other day.
I was absolutely blown-away with what he wrote. And when I showed it to my first wife she too was incredulous, and interrogated me hard as to whether or not I *helped* him. I most certainly DID NOT.
Here's a link to a copy of our very rough story. The beginning is almost all my work but I clearly indicate where my son takes over:
Pencil Edventures
What do y'all think?
I was particularly taken aback by his penchant for *suspense* and *flow*; and I like how he changed fonts/font sizes for emphasis. He is only 6 after all.
But realize that he's read nothing short of a bazillion books already. So he's well-aquainted with basic literary form.
See also:
Prince C-Nut - Book Devourer
Raising a Bibliophile.
5 comments:
Pretty good. He's got some learning under his belt.
But, it is time for work, now.
I would like him to start a scanning business.
We just scanned several hundred of my MIL's old pics so he knows how to do it.
It's tedious and computer-centric....perfect for a kid like him.
Will hit up relatives and family friends first.
The chimney sweep industry is just too competitive up in NY with all the Latin American migrants...
So, the business model is get people all across the country to send photos for scanning, then burn them to a disc and send them back?
Take a good photo of him doing the work, with a pouty face, a sad tale about him working for money to take his POOR friend with him to Summer camp, then post the flyers in the grocery in Flarda.
Can you find a photo of the Prince with a buddy that looks really sad?
Have you tried one of these text to speech programs to tell his story? My son and I did that back about Prince's age or younger, and it was a hoot, because you could change the speed, or type crazy words like lulululululu, and laugh and laugh.
Auntulna
Auntie,
That is a terrific idea - but not just for my kids.
I should look into that speech-to-text technology for own writing.
Heck, I could probably do it on my Droid phone!
Thanks.
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