Teaching Grammar to a 10 Year Old Boy

Boys and girls are different.  You can NOT convince me they aren't.  If I assigned my daughters to write sentences, they'd give me sentences about fluffy animals, princesses, castles, fairies and mermaids.

But when my 10 year old son was given the assignment of writing sentences using specific verbs in past tense, this is what I got:

• swim  - "She swam past a waterfall."  (Okay, that's not bad.)
• wear  - "She wore underwear."  (Here we go, but it gets worse.)
• blow  - "She blew her fart away."  (Sigh.)
• eat  - "She ate her boogers."  (Sigh ... again.)
• tear - "Tears were shed when she farted."  (Oops - he used tear as a noun not a verb.)
• drink - "She drank her own pee."  (Maybe a few too many survival shows?)

Actually, he was so excited about his rude sentences and looking forward to my reaction to them, that he didn't notice that some of those were supposed to be past tense with helpers.  Three of them ended up being wrong for not having helpers, and then there was the problem with tear.  At least he knew how to write past tense sentences, and we'll work on paying better attention to details next time.

But my daughters would never have written these sentences. Never. Homeschooling boys is a challenge at times, but I'm so thankful I get to be their teacher.



April E.

     Read Teaching Grammar To A 10 Year Old Boy, Part 2.