Vocabulary.  I've looked for  pre-packaged and affordable consumable curriculum that will give my children an improved vocabulary without a lot of twaddle.  I happen to be one of those boring people who would rather have my children use a word rather than learn about using them.  All of the theoretical knowledge of words won't do you a hill of beans if you aren't comfortable actually using the word in correspondence or conversation.  Hence, my children's new and simplified vocabulary program designed and implemented by yours truly.

It's so simple it's almost embarrassing.  However, on the off chance that I've thought of something that is exactly something someone else is looking for, I decided to blog about it and save them hours of frustration and searching.  This is easy, straight forward, and guaranteed to be twaddle free- at least until the kids get done with it!

First, the books-

and of course... what is inside them.  (After all, they're cute but if cute curriculum was all it took to educate a child, my children would be the most educated kids on the planet!)

I told you it was embarrassingly simple.  Now I've chosen to write the words on the pages myself but you really don't have to.  You could do it all in MS Word, you could have the children write the words, or you could, I suppose, just talk about them daily.  I knew the talking wouldn't happen.  (Stop laughing, trust me, we've got more exciting things to talk about like Andra chasing Ethan with Lorna's unders.  For the full story see www.homeschoolblogger.com/havigs )

I got my list of words from:  http://www.virtualsalt.com/vocablst.htm

It is my intention for us to "do" all of them.  The program is simple.  From A-Z we write one word per page.  The children look them up in dictionaries (dictionary skills are an excellent by-product of this facinating program!), they write down the definition (can you say penmanship??), and then they write eight sentences using the word properly.  Why eight you say?  I'm glad you asked.  For the very scientific reason that ten sentences leaves too little room for some definitions and five sentences wasn't enough practice in my book.

There it is.  Chautona's Quick and Dirty Guide to a More Magniloquent You.  CQDGMMY for short.

Maybe I'll just stick to "Vocabulary".