Language Arts
We didn’t do any spelling this week since I didn’t want to bring the large white board and all the little tiles with us.
Georgie is continuing to do fairly well with Handwriting without Tears. He really likes writing in the book but I usually have him practice on lined or gray box paper first. We have gone through the different uppercase letters forms but we are doing some review of the whole alphabet since he still doesn’t always use proper form (starting at the top and going down, etc.). We will probably move on to numbers and lowercase letters next week but continue practicing with uppercase letters at least a couple times a week.
We are continuing along in our Grammar programs. We are still working on telling sentences and Georgie is having no problem knowing if something is a complete sentence or not. We also played with our new Mad Libs Junior book – Animals, Animals, Animals. Georgie surprised me by being able to read most of the word lists himself. Which brings us to….
Reading. Georgie is doing excellent with his reading. We did Lessons 43,44,45 and 46 in Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. These all dealt with ending consonant blends. We are doing about one lesson a day as long as he is able to read the lesson without a problem.
He read I Wish I Had Duck Feet all by himself to add to his bookworm. We read a selection from Frog and Toad Are Friends by alternating – he would read a two page spread, then I would read the next one. He also read most of Rainbow Fish – Finders Keepers but had me read the last few pages.
In addition to the books I pick out for him to read, he is trying to read every book we use for school. We used our Usborne IL Encyclopedia of World History to learn about evolution this week and he tried to read the selections we were discussing. He was only able to read about half the words in each paragraph but since he doesn’t mind if I correct him, I like that he is so excited to try. Even if it does make everything take twice as long.
We did three or four pages from Explode the Code each day. These are also dealing with ending blends and we ran into a few pages that we hadn’t covered in OPGTR yet. Since I really want to use these for review, we may have to take a break to give us a chance to get a little further in OPGTR. I think I am going to continue using these for review until Georgie is proficient in reading. They really do a good job of reinforcing what we are covering in OPGTR and helps me confirm that he really does understand a lesson.
Vicki has done very little this week except play on the computer. She knows all her letter sounds but was resistant to blending so we may have to take a break for a little while.
Math
We are continuing along with Math Mammoth. I know I’ve seen on forums that students don’t need to do all the problems on a page if they show they understand the concept but Georgie actually likes to do them all. He won’t necessarily do them in order, but he likes finishing a page. Each day we are doing an addition page and a subtraction page from 1A, then each day we do one additional page on Place Value, Clock or Shapes/Measuring from 1B. We are holding off on continuing with money until he has a better understanding of Place Value and adding two digit numbers.
Electives
We did a brief overview of Evolution as part of our Prehistory unit.
Georgie recently saw a show that did a presentation of the American Sign Language alphabet. This caught his attention in a big way and he came running into the kitchen where Steph and I were talking to show us some letters. Steph and I both know the ASL alphabet so we were able to explore it further with him. Georgie showed so much interest, I decided to add Sign Language to our curriculum. So far we are working on the alphabet, his name and the sign for “I Love You”.
The town where Steph goes to school has a K-8 School for the Deaf that sends its graduates to her high school. They offer a wonderful 1/2 year course in Sign Language that taught about deaf culture and offered the opportunity for discussion and practice with deaf students. Steph took this class her sophomore year and was able to give me the materials from her class to get us started. They are a wonderful resource and will help me a lot as we proceed but since they are written at a high school level, I also ordered the Scholastic book Sign Language My First 100 Words.
Not too many pictures this week but I did manage to get one half-way decent shot of my three kids together.
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