First of all, Avery is making leaps and bounds improvements in receptive communication. There is so much now that he demonstrates that he understands. Much of it is procedural stuff that relates to him, like bedtime routines and changing diapers and stuff, but putting him on a strict routine for everything like that to give him context around language has really helped a lot. He will follow simple instructions (“Get your milk.”) And anticipate what is next, (“Avery, go change diapers and then come back down and sit with me.” gets a much better response than go change your diapers.) It took some training with Nik to say and do the same things consistently and use consistent short, simple phrases, but I think it is obviously working. He is a so much happier child when he knows what is coming next for him, which is a combination of being VERY consistent with both routine and phrases to describe routine.
Big Kids:
- Read Usborne Book 3: A Bus for Miss Moss again and did the matching workbook page. Aaron again lost his pencil and was not prepared to start work. So I fired him from school and told him that he would have to do it another day when Naim was busy at D’s house or something. He finally crawled out of some rock somewhere with a pencil and begged to do school again. I give a five minute warning before school starts, and this is when they are supposed to make sure they have all their crap together. Sigh.
- Math, did the first three lessons of chapter 2, which was a #0-10 review, but did not get to the practice book. We will do that next time, which is good because Naim needs more practice writing numbers.
- Sylvan: Aaron did Lesson 11 -it words, and ten spelling words from the box. Naim did a review of letters E-M.
- HOP: Aaron did a review of th- words with the flip flap book. Then did lesson 4 which was sn- and sl- words. Read a book called “Slim Slam.” Review of the first unit is next, but we might sit here for a day or two and find some ways to review as he is not quite where I want him with these words. The first grade HOP goes a bit faster and covers more, I think if we review for a day or two, it will be easier to go on.
- HOP for Naim was -ab words. We did flip flap book and flashcards and two of the bonus workbook pages. My next thought is that we will go back to the book and do those CVC with short a words lessons again and then we will move on to short i, which is where he lost it before. Then, take 3 or 4 days with each lesson on short i instead of the rate Aaron goes which is two days per lesson.
- Word Time (CALM ROUGH) wrote on chalkboard and also wrote HWT V on chalkboard and did workbook page on V.
- Naim also watched Zig Zat during the “intermission.” I want to do something a little more fun during intermission when he is done with Zig Zat, like art or science projects, or do a more complex read-aloud book.
Planning on talking to Dwight about Zelandonii sometime this week. Will work out something with my dad when I have a more sure-fire timeline. I was planning on telling D anyway, but he sent me this crap email from a dude the other day bitching about the kids being at his house, when they are his goddamned kids. I was feeling bad about it, but he pulls stuff like this and then I think, yeah. This is the right thing for everyone involved. So, I am ready. We hope to get the citizenship stuff out this week, and we are asking for expedited service. If we get that, and get the house gone through in the next two months, things might move pretty quickly from that point on. But we will see…I see the kids and I finishing the school year here, and we will hopefully be on the move by summer. N could be gone as quickly as March or April. But! Many, many many things on the task list between now and then.
ETA: Aaron went to Costco so Naim and I finally got to try some of the snap circuit experiments in his green energy circuit kit he got for Xmas. We figured out how to charge the battery using the wind-up power, made a fan with wind up power and got the solar panel to work to turn on the light but could not get enough energy for the fan to work. (It recommends to not use compact florescent but that is all we had handy.) It was fun, he kept thinking only DAD could do circuits, but I showed him that I COULD, TOO! So there.
Winding to charge the battery.
Human powered fan.
Trying to figure out the solar power for the fan. I think we just didn't have enough light to get it the voltage is needed.
Filed under: Communication, Handwriting, Language Arts, Math, Science | Tagged: Calvert Math, Discoveries in Early Reading, Handwriting, HOP, HWT, Snap-Circuits, Sylvan, Word Time | Leave a comment »
Acquara Independent School 