Humor is a great way to motivate kids to write. When we give kids freedom to write what they think is funny (as long as it isn’t hurtful or offensive), they can discover the joy in writing. While some of these writing prompts aren’t funny in and of themselves, they open the door for your student’s comedic genius.
Get the Printable Prompts Here. Subscribers will find the printables in the folder linked at the bottom of your email. Just like the funny fall writing prompts I created, these writing prompts are appropriate for all ages. Younger kids can dictate their writing to you. These are the kinds of cute papers that will be keepsakes! New writers will appreciate the printables I’ve created for subscribers with colorful pictures and handwriting lines. Older writers can use their own paper or type their responses.
These winter writing prompts include Christmas and Valentine’s Day topics
Five things that wouldn’t make good Christmas gifts are:
Make up a recipe for fruitcake that explains why few people like it.
Write about who the Gingerbread Man would run into in your neighborhood and who would end up eating him.
Write your ideal Christmas Day schedule
Write a nice thank you note for an ugly Christmas sweater
Write a letter from a snowman to a weather forecaster complaining about the warm temperatures
If snowflakes could talk, they would say…
If you had the power to freeze things like Elsa from the movie Frozen, how would you use your power?
Describe a sled ride down a hill from a dog’s perspective
Write lyrics for the song a love-sick cat would sing
Create the perfect candy for Valentine’s Day, listing ingredients and directions
Describe a cold to someone who’s never had one before
Click the Graphic Below to Access the Printables
You’ll also receive tips for teaching kids to write funny. (You know what I mean.) Or get the printables here.
If your child writes something really funny, share it with me at psychowith6 at gmail dot com and I may share it on the blog.
I was amazed by the response to my 6 Crazy Easy Crock-pot Recipes post. I really thought people would be put off by how simple the recipes were, but they loved them! (Scroll down to get five of the original six recipes.)
So I decided to share six more crazy easy recipes. My family loves these! And I love that dinner is ready early in the day in just a few minutes’ time.
If you want even more dinner time sanity, click to download my Plan to Eat shopping listfor these recipes AND the original recipes. You could even double the whole list and have meals planned for the month. I am substituting an easy recipe for the award-winning chili recipe on the original post. So you’re actually getting seven new and easy slow cooker recipes. Are you ready to get cookin’?
SUBSCRIBERS>> You already have the shopping list in your Subscriber Freebie folder linked at the bottom of this email.
This is so very satisfying if you’re a Mexican food fan. Avocado isn’t essential and you can easily sub Mexican shredded cheese for queso fresco and salsa for pico de gallo.
Serves:4
Ingredients
1 lb.uncooked chicken cubed
1 c.uncooked brown rice
1 can(10 oz.) enchilada sauce
1 can(4 oz.) chopped green chilies
1⁄2 c.chicken broth
1 mediumonion chopped
1 tsp.cumin
1⁄4 tsp.salt
1 avocado
1 c.pico de gallo
1⁄2 c.queso fresco crumbled
OPTIONAL – 1 c. non-fat plain Greek yogurt or light sour cream
Directions
Spray your Crock Pot with non-stick spray (use a liner instead!) and add the chicken, rice, enchilada sauce, green chilies, chicken broth, onion, cumin and salt.
Stir to combine and cook on low for 5-6 hours or high for 3-4 hours.
Serve topped with pico de gallo, queso fresco and Greek yogurt.
We love all things buffalo and this couldn’t be an easier way to enjoy the spice!
Serves:12
Ingredients
3 lbsraw boneless skinless chicken breasts (the original recipe used frozen breasts but I used them unfrozen, so it appears you can do either)
12 ozbottle of Buffalo wing sauce (I used Frank’s Wing Sauce)
1 oz packetdry Ranch mix (I used Hidden Valley)
2 tablespoonslight butter
Directions
Place the chicken breasts in your slow cooker. Pour the bottle of wing sauce over the top of the chicken. Sprinkle the packet of ranch mix over the top of the wing sauce. Place the lid on your slow cooker. Cook on low for 7-9 hours until meat shreds easily.
Remove meat and shred it using two forks. Return shredded meat to the sauce and add the butter. Stir to combine. Continue to cook on low for another hour so the meat can soak up the sauce. Serve however you like!
The epitome of easy! Just pour barbecue sauce on the frozen chicken and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Use a mixer to shred chicken. Pickle slices optional.
You can add frozen veggies to this and serve it over biscuits you make in the oven too.
Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 6 hr
Total Time:6 hr 10 min
Serves:8
Ingredients
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
2 tablespoonsbutter
2 (10.75 ounce) canscondensed cream of chicken soup
1 onion finely diced
2 (10 ounce) packagesrefrigerated biscuit dough torn into pieces
Directions
Place the chicken, butter, soup, and onion in a slow cooker, and fill with enough water to cover.
Cover, and cook for 5 to 6 hours on High. About 30 minutes before serving, place the torn biscuit dough in the slow cooker. Cook until the dough is no longer raw in the center.
So easy, cooking-phobic people will be happy to make it.
Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 4 hr
Total Time:4 hr 10 min
Serves:4
Ingredients
4 lemons
3 headsgarlic
1 whole chicken 4 to 5 pounds
Fresh rosemary or any fresh herbs
All-purpose steak seasoning or salt and pepper
Directions
Cut garlic heads and lemons in half and lay in bottom of slow cooker.
Cut the bottoms off the lemons so they lay flat.
Add a sprig of rosemary, or any herbs.
Remove insides from chicken, rinse chicken and pat dry.
Season chicken well, inside and out, with all-purpose steak seasoning or salt and pepper.
Lay chicken on top of garlic and lemon slices and stuff the chicken with a garlic head cut in half, and a lemon cut in quarters.
Cover top of chicken with additional lemon slices and rosemary.
Turn slow cooker to high, and cook for about 4 hours, or until chicken reaches 165 degrees. Slow cooker cooking times vary. Important: Use a meat thermometer to check for doneness.
When chicken has reached 165, turn off slow cooker and let chicken rest for about 15 minutes.
Remove from slow cooker, carve and serve.
Liquid from slow cooker can be strained and served over chicken.
Halve roast and place in a 3-qt. slow cooker. Combine the soup, consomme, broth and bouillon; pour over roast. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or until meat is tender.
Remove meat and shred with two forks. Serve on rolls. Skim fat from cooking juices and serve as a dipping sauce.
Have you ever asked your kids to write and heard groans in response? I have! That is until I started encouraging my kids to write funny stuff. Suddenly writing was fun!
Humorous writing not only motivates reluctant writers, but aids memory and learning. Kids (and adults) remember funny material better.
The first step is to give your kids permission to use humor. Even the blandest writing prompts can be hilarious when young writers feel free to let their funny creative juices flow.
The second step is to give them prompts that are related to what is going on with them. I did my master’s thesis in psychology on humor and learned the obvious: relatable humor is funny! Depressed people will laugh at depression jokes, for example. So give the kids writing prompts about fall in the fall! Can’t come up with anything? No worries! I’ve got you covered. You can either use the writing prompts that follow in your homeschool or classroom verbally or you can use the colorful printables with handwriting lines available to subscribers.
The third step is to be flexible with the form of writing. Allow your students to dictate their writing or type it depending on their level. By the way, I don’t think there’s an age range for these prompts.
Funny Fall Writing Prompts
If I were a leaf, I would like to fall on_____________because________________.
Jack Frost is a mythical character who is said to create the frost we see on windows. Name and describe a character who is responsible for leaves changing color in the fall.
Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper from Johnny Appleseed, admitting that you didn’t exactly plant all the apple trees, even though that’s what everyone says.
Write a paper to convince people that your favorite kind of apple is the best.
Write a story about a squirrel who thought it was spring when it was fall.
Write about what happened when a horse who was allergic to hay pulled a wagon for a hay ride.
Create a recipe that includes pumpkin that really shouldn’t include it.
If you were a talking jack-o-lantern, what would you say?
Write a poem about fall the way Eeyore of Winnie-the-Pooh would write it (it doesn’t have to rhyme).
Write a poem about fall the way Tigger of Winnie-the-Pooh would write it.
Write a letter to hunters as though you were a turkey wanting to live.
If you served all of your favorite foods for Thanksgiving, what would be on the menu?
Download Your Free Funny Fall Writing Prompts Printables
Can you say that subtitle three times fast? 😉 In the PDF, I share more tips for encouraging your kids to write humorous material. You’ll get a printable page for hand-written work for each prompt. You’ll also automatically receive the winter, spring, and summer versions. If you hate getting email, know that once you subscribe, you can change your preferences to Freebies Only. You’ll only be notified when a post describes a new subscriber freebie, which you’ll automatically have access to.
Click the turkey image below, add your email, and the download will automatically arrive. By the way, if you like this material, I would love for you to share it with other teachers and parents you know.
Want a copy of this daily to-do list to print and place in a page protector or frame to use with a dry-erase marker? Click here:
To-Do List Please!When you’re a new homeschooler or even when you’re experienced, you can become overwhelmed by everything you think you should be doing in your homeschool on a daily basis. The good news is there’s nothing wrong with you! You may have just overloaded your to-do list. To save our sanity when we’re trying to add too many things to our days, I created a simple to-do list with six tasks that we can accomplish most days.
#1 Pray
As a Christian homeschooling family, this is foundational. I shared in the video below that we pray about what we’re thankful for, sorry for, and what we need help with. It never fails that when I’m feeling stressed, prayer will calm me down. We also pray for family and friends by selecting a few of the Christmas cards that are sent to us each year. Want to read more about establishing a family devotional time? Check out this post.
#2 Read
Reading is our favorite homeschooling activity. If it’s not your child’s favorite, check out these tips for reluctant readers. We enjoy reading individually, but love reading books out loud that correspond to our Mystery of History volume. One of our favorite books this year was Raiders from the Sea (a Christian fiction series about the Vikings). Reading is also a critical skill for our kids’ academic and life success, so it’s going to be high on our to-do list. I hope it is on yours, too.
#3 Solve
Math skills are also very important for life success. Avoid the college remedial math courses by making sure your kids are practicing their math facts, playing math games, and regularly learning math principles. We love Life of Fred math for this because it’s reading based and just plain fun. Check out my Homeschool Math board on Pinterest for some great activities to try.
#4 Create
I’ve written before about my angst about art, but I’ve found programs I really liked such as Atelier. But creating time (which is so important to our children’s happiness and future accomplishment) can be writing time, Lego time, robotics time, Minecraft time, or music time. Time to create and some basic materials are all you need.
#5 Test
Science is becoming more important to future careers than ever before. Doing experiments with a science curriculum you love (click to see a list of the best!) is a great way to give kids the opportunity to test their hypotheses, but nature walks are too. Cindy West has created an amazing curriculum for this purpose that you can use on the fly. There’s no reason not to put a little science into your day!
#6 Play
When the day becomes so crowded with seat work and classes and activities that there’s no time for play, there’s a problem. It’s even a problem when we don’t get time to play as homeschool moms. We all need a little margin in our day and dare I say it, a little boredom, to help us unwind and find our own fun. I think it’s really important not to dictate what the play time is used for, because then it isn’t really play. I do, however, believe in setting some screen time limits. I encourage you to pick up your free homeschool daily to-do list if you haven’t already! To-Do List Please!>If you already subscribe to Psychowith6, you’ll find the link to the Subscriber Freebies folder in your welcome email.
Is there anything else you think is important to do daily (if possible)? Let’s chat about it at Homeschool Sanity on Facebook.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent way too much time trying to make digital homeschool planners work for you, when they just don’t!
That’s why I created the Easiest Homeschool Record System Ever that you can easily customize for your kids. I still think it’s a great way to keep homeschool records. But something happened that made me create a form that I think is even more MOTIVATING for kids (and for parent teachers, too).
I call it the Quarter Checklist, but you may call it a lifesaver!
Here’s how I came up with the idea. We were nearing the end of the school year. Some of my kids were behind in some subjects and were close to being finished with others. I really wanted them to be done with their independent work before we went on our family vacation. So I asked them what lesson they were on in each subject. I then made them a checklist of lessons to complete to be done with the school year. Here’s what happened.
My daughter became obsessed with finishing her school work, even begging to stay home from scrapbooking so she could work.
My son began working through multiple math lessons a day.
My older son spent hours finishing up his history reading.
All without any nagging on my part! That’s when I got to thinking.
How could I motivate the kids to work this way all year long?
I thought about what made that list so effective and here’s what I realized:
It was a closed list. My kids knew that if they finished the list, they didn’t have to keep working.
It was a short list. Unlike the list in their regular planners, the list seemed very doable.
It offered a reward. Not only were we going on vacation when they finished, but the kids worked for the reward of having free time.
I could do this during the school year too!
So I created a school quarter checklist for next school year.
The great news is I created one for you, too. Here’s how it works:
Make a list of each subject your child will do independently. Label one column with that subject. For example LOF for Life of Fred Math. You may need more than one sheet per child, depending on the number of subjects. If you end up with multiple sheets, note the page numbers at the top of the forms. Don’t have something next to each checkbox? Even better! Your child will feel like they have very little to do!
For each subject, determine how many total lessons s/he will complete in a year. Divide that number by four.
List the lesson or page numbers for the first quarter next to each check box on the form. If your children’s handwriting is neat enough, you can have them complete these forms themselves. If that isn’t a sanity saver! (If you run out of room for that subject, circle NEXT PAGE; otherwise circle YOU’RE DONE!)
Write the date the quarter officially ends in front of the year and plan a reward. We love to go out for breakfast. If your student finishes before that date, s/he enjoys the reward of no independent work (even if family subjects and classes continue through the quarter).
Store your completed checklists on clipboards. There’s something about a clipboard that’s so motivating! I love these Dexas clipboard cases that have space for notebooks and pencils and have a carrying handle. Don’t you? There is a color for every student.
Even if your child has multiple pages to work with, the perception will be that their lessons are very, very doable! Because that’s the case, your student is likely to be extra motivated. One tip: only plan one quarter at a time. Life happens!
How to Use the Quarter Checklist as a Teacher
I know I’m not the only one who gets discouraged when I get behind on my school plans. Using the Quarter Checklist, I think I can not only stay on schedule, but even get ahead. Here’s why:
The kids will be motivated to move through lessons quickly so we can get done with ALL of our schooling ahead of schedule.
I will be motivated to finish all the lessons because I’m working with a closed list.
I can use the form to show them how we’re doing after taking a sick day or free day to motivate them to spend extra time with me on subject.
I’d love it if you’d share the sanity with homeschooling friends and let me know how it’s working for you on Facebook. Check out the other great ideas I’m pinning on Pinterest.
When I heard about free learning resources for the summer, I was interested. But when I learned that Discovery Education and myOn Literacy were some of the free programs available to us homeschoolers, I couldn’t contain my excitement.
I have used Discovery Education with my family and the incredible videos and teaching helps they include are absolutely perfect for low-key summer learning. My association with myOn is a little more interesting! I used to be a sales rep for this incredible program that is marketed to public schools. Whether you have a beginning, struggling, or avid reader, you will be amazed by the interactive books that are available with reading supports (audio and highlighted text and more). It is like having an entire library in your home.
But that’s not all that’s included as freebies for and if you’re smart, you’ve already started scrolling down to see what you get! I’m definitely claiming my freebies now. Have a great learning summer!
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
