Avery and I did a few “Buttercups” things. We tried punching out pics of balls and apples and then sorting and patterning them. That went on for a whole 30 seconds. He did look at some of the pictures for the theme of “good night” one of which had a baby in bed. He got interested in that picture, so then I got out the book, “Good Night, Baby” and read that to him. He actually let me read it to him 3 or 4 times. It’s a MIRACLE! This child who absolutely hates books. It is all photographs of a baby going through a bedtime routine. He even turned the pages correctly one run through. I think he is finally figuring out pictures a bit and showing an interest in them. He may be starting to get that pictures actually represent real things and are not just colors on a page. One picture had a rubber duck exactly like his, I showed it to him and then next time I didn’t. He wouldn’t let me turn the page unless I showed it to him again.
When I think of the first year and a half with this kid, I remember how he was just a dud as a baby. No personality, no excitement, very little laughter and smiles. A lot of whining or just zoning out. Now he is the happiest kid ever. He laughs all day long. I feel like all the bonding we were supposed to do the first year I am catching up with now. He is fun to be around. I don’t know what the long-term effects (if any) of all this will be, but I do think he will learn to talk eventually. I wonder what he is going to say?
Big Kids:
- Read Usborne Book 2: The Dressing-Up Box and did the activities in the back of the book. That is our final read through of that for now and next time we will start book 4.
- Math: Did Lessons 6 and 7, which was more Venn Diagramming and patterns. They named patterns ABC, etc. and had to represent them. Next is just a review and then end of chapter test. I might have them do the test like a real test to start getting them in that frame of mind. (Meaning, separate tables, no help, no sharing answers) They can’t go through their entire lives without taking tests or working independently, so it won’t hurt to do it once a chapter.
- Sylvan: Aaron finished lesson ten about clothing words. He always puts his little Aaron flair into everything. In this, he had a word search of clothing words (pants, dress, hat, etc.) When he circled the word, he turned the circle into that item. The hat circle looked like a hat, the mitten circle had a thumb, the dress circle-which was vertical-was dress shaped. He always figures out how to make his own fun. Naim did Ll.
- Naim watched Lesson 34 of ZigZat. There are only 6 more lessons and then we will swing around and do ’em again. He also did the HOP bonus book pages on -am words.
- Aaron did Lesson 3 in HOP, which was wh- words. We need to swing back and do a little review of the th- words. He doesn’t know them well enough yet. I think we will do a flip book review next time. And Ack! I forgot to do spelling with him.
- Word Time was AIRPLANE and CLOUD. I usually have Aaron read these and then Naim spell them back. Then I have Aaron read the sentences in the teachers manual about the words. We talk about them (whatever comes up…today it was that you really can’t lay on a cloud.) and then they have to use them in a sentence. Sometimes they write them on the chalkboard, too. We are near the end of the book and then the next book is “Sentence School.” All this is from HWT. After that, in about second or third grade, when the bulk of reading instruction is done, we will switch to the Writing Strands series. All this is to say that I am ready for Word Time to be over and move on, it kind of falls under the Classsical Education model of copy work. But it does lead to interesting discussions and the very beginnings of writing concepts.
- Handwriting was Ll.
Filed under: Communication, Handwriting, Language Arts, Math | Tagged: Buttercups, Calvert Math, Discoveries in Early Reading, Handwriting, HOP, HWT, Sylvan, Word Time | Leave a comment »
Acquara Independent School 