We Survived The Week - A Recap

I'm really proud of that. Despite being ill, all of us were able to pull it off and stay on schedule. The kids were very patient with my barely audible voice as we tackled the readings for the day. And just as important, they were pleasant and positive. Here is a look back:

Now in his second week, Jack has an even stronger desire to read after creating Starfall books from a free Starfall workbook we obtained. They are actually the same early reader books you find on their site, but I chose to go with a hands on approach for him as it tackled two things: fine motor skills using his scissors to cut and create the book, and he's able to pull out his handmade readers any time for practice. By the end of this week he was wanting to tackle the harder words that had "tricks" to them. So I introduced the first book with the rules for the silent E. Now when Grace sits down to read to herself, he feels less frustrated in that he can pull out one of his readers and read with confidence alongside her.

Grace is really enjoying the addition of music lessons two to three times a week. We've learned how to hold and strum the guitar, we've learned notes A and B on the recorder, and she's been making up her own songs on the keyboard. I just received the piano book so we'll begin that this week. I've found that I have the best one on one time with her when Ken takes Jack to Tae-kwon-do on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So those 50 minutes are spent helping me prepare dinner (which she loves) and then we do a Monet activity, Puccini activity, or a music lesson together.

I've mentioned it before, but I can't say enough how much Grace's reading has blown my expectations out of the water. The words she can figure out, have me second guessing if she has somehow read the material before. I am glad that we are using the poetry of La Mare for her reading at the beginning of this term as it is enough to challenge her. As an exercise I will have her look over two of the assigned poems and go over it on her own. She is to circle any words that she doesn't know, we review them first, and then she reads the poem. This has given me some time to work with Jack while she reads, and it makes her reading go quicker once she has gone through it silently herself.

The children are taking to our rodent studies well. Despite the bad name rodents get in the adult world, they are pretty irresistable to the children. I've had little trouble keeping their interest during our introduction and time spent on squirrels these first two weeks.

So despite a bumpy beginning, we are off to a great positive start. And I'm happy to see that the pretend play has still been wonderful since starting school back up. Despite the messy playroom...this is a good season.