When I was growing up I always looked forward to ordering books from the book orders at school. Because I had to buy the books with my own money the books meant that much more to me. Sometimes I had saved up enough money to buy one of the more expensive choices but most of the time I only had enough for one or two of the less expensive books.
One of the selections that the book orders almost always contained was “Mad Libs”. For those of you not familiar with “Mad Libs” it is a “book” of sorts but also a fill-in-the-blank game. Each page contains an innocent enough story that has various words missing throughout the paragraphs. Below the line to fill in is a part of speech… verb, noun, adverb, exclamation, etc. You asked someone else to give you answers that you filled in without them knowing how it will affect the story. At the end you read the new story outloud. It is hilarious! You can erase your answers so you can do each story over and over again (although there are so many stories included in each book).
About two years ago I was decluttering our garage when I ran across a box of old books. I found one of my “Mad Libs” from my childhood in it. As I read through it I found myself laughing so hard that I eventually had tears running down my cheeks. I thought about how much fun I had as a kid and just knew I needed to share these with my kids.
I brought them into the livingroom and told them that we were going to play a game. I had my “Mad Libs” book in front of me and starting asking each of them to tell me “a verb ending in ing”, “the name of a person in this room”, ” a noun”, “an adjective”. If I was to someone that didn’t know a particular part of speech I’d explain it and give an example. I never told them why they were doing this. When all the blanks had been filled in I read the story to them. They howled with laughter and begged to do more.
At that moment I realized that I had struck gold on a homeschooling front. Here my kids thought they were just having fun with a word game but really I knew they were learning! My older kids were reinforcing lessons they had already learned and the younger ones were learning new lessons… effortlessly and while having fun! I decided at that moment I had found a new homeschooling tool.
In the last two years we’ve bought many new “Mad Lib” books and several of my children have learned parts of speech by doing them. The older kids have wised up and asked me when we do them if this is “schoolwork”. When I reply yes they always grin and tell me how much they love school. As a teacher it is so fullfilling to find an activity that sparks a joy for learning in your children!
I would have never thought as a child doing “Mad Libs” that one day I’d be using them to teach my own children. I’m so glad I rediscovered them and can pass them on to my children. They have helped me teach and have provided hours and hours of so much fun and laughter in our house.
What surprising teaching tools have you discovered?
Michelle can be found writing about her family of almost 11 at her blog Pass The Flu Bug Please.
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