Today was a very full day. Very intense, but thoroughly enjoyable. Andrew did a lot of reading. He finished "Pompeii ... Buried Alive!" The book was a bit of a stretch for him, but he did well. By the end of the book, he was actually picking up speed when reading sentences with familiar words.
I have not been satisfied with the curriculum's Language Arts section recently. It does not work for Andrew nor me. So, I am doing my own thing which is going to the very beginning of everything. Letters make words, words make sentences, sentences make paragraphs, paragraphs make chapters, chapters make stories.
Our focus is the sentence and getting to know it. First, I asked Andrew to recognize a sentence in a story. I asked him to circle the first letter of every sentence and underline each sentence with a different color pencil. The story we were working with had long and very short sentences. It also included the period, the exclamation mark and the question mark. The pause that Andrew had when reaching the period and while picking up the next color will train him to make a pause in reading. Once we can recognize a sentence with ease, we will see what it is made up of.
Our math introduced us to the quarter dollar. The kids had fun examining the different designs on the tails side of the coins. As to the heads, they both surprised me by recognizing Washington's profile.
Tomorrow will bring to us our last study of Egypt and a thorough review (read: oral test) of the region and the times. Andrew be prepared!
 |
| The art of the cold mornings. |
 |
| Reviewing things from last year, like our phone number and address. |
 |
| Saara with her song of the week: head, shoulders, knees and toes. |
 |
| Andrew underlining the sentences. |
 |
| Counting by 25s to 100. Just four numbers to memorize. How we get from number to number is spelled out with buttons. |
 |
| Meanwhile, Saara is making patterns with buttons. |
 |
| Andrew comparing the coins. |
