Jimmy actually *asked* to review a few things today. (He also asked for a math test, the little weirdo. LOL! But we didn't have one in today's lesson.) So we reviewed the A through L Bible memory verses. Jimmy remembered nearly every one perfectly except for the references. WTG, Jimmy! He also reviewed all of his letters, Aa-Ll. I asked if he wanted to copy letters or words, and he chose letters. Then I pulled out some phonics flash cards. We went over all of the cards up to L. Jimmy picked up most of them very quickly. They have pictures on the front to help describe the sound for each letter or letter combination, like a fish for F. Jimmy quickly realized that he could guess the sound by making the sounds of the pictures. We went over the different variations, like long & soft vowels, letter combinations (like ch), and the funky letters like c (could sound like s or k) and g (could sound like "guh" or like j).
For math, we did today's calendar work... and Jimmy got today's date completely correct! Today - a Thursday!!! Yay! Then we worked with linking cubes. The lesson number assumed we were in January (we're going through the lessons faster than the book intended), so we reviewed the pattern for December's calendar (red-green-green) and then introduced January's pattern (blue-blue-white-white). Jimmy got the concept very well, but we had to work on a little following-instructions issues. I think Jimmy was trying to show off to Daddy, who was in the room. After a correction by both me & Randy, Jimmy was much better about listening to what I actually was telling him to do.
Before reading The Clown of God, Jimmy & I discussed groups of objects. The main character of the story is a juggler, so I put 21 coins on the table & told Jimmy to pretend that they were eggplants that Giovanni could juggle. He had to tell me how many groups of 3 there could be. We worked on how to move the coins to be able to tell the most easily. Then I took away 1 coin (leaving 20) and asked him to do the same thing for groups of 2, 4, 10, and 5. He did very well.
We had a guest storytime reader today - Randy! Jimmy really liked that, but Randy learned just how squirmy Jimmy can be. =)
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Our store
We had fun in math today. After our daily calendar work (which Jimmy aced), we played with pretend store items. Yesterday, as I posted, we labeled 10 cans of food with price tags of 1-10 cents. Today, we pretended to buy them. Jimmy was given 10 cents and had to decide what he could buy with that. He had a lot of fun and was disappointed when math was over.
We read Clown of God again today, this time discussing people in need. The juggler in the story was an orphan. We talked about how God enjoyed the juggler's talent, but how God also loves when we help people in need. The juggler used his talent to make people happy, and, in the same way, we can use our talents to help people in need. And that makes God happy. We talked about how we could help people with specific needs, like a classmate in Sunday School who is crying (see if they'd like to share the toy we're using) or someone who is hungry (give them food).
Jimmy wrote a lot during handwriting today. He wrote several L & l's (our LotW), and then copied lake, LAKE, caleb, CALEB, jade, JADE, half, HALF, fig, and FIG. He really liked the chance to practice his big letters as well as his little letters. He worked on his own, occasionally showing us letters that he was particularly proud of writing. We reviewed this week's memory verse as he worked.
We read Clown of God again today, this time discussing people in need. The juggler in the story was an orphan. We talked about how God enjoyed the juggler's talent, but how God also loves when we help people in need. The juggler used his talent to make people happy, and, in the same way, we can use our talents to help people in need. And that makes God happy. We talked about how we could help people with specific needs, like a classmate in Sunday School who is crying (see if they'd like to share the toy we're using) or someone who is hungry (give them food).
Jimmy wrote a lot during handwriting today. He wrote several L & l's (our LotW), and then copied lake, LAKE, caleb, CALEB, jade, JADE, half, HALF, fig, and FIG. He really liked the chance to practice his big letters as well as his little letters. He worked on his own, occasionally showing us letters that he was particularly proud of writing. We reviewed this week's memory verse as he worked.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Clown of God
Just a quick update before I jump into today's stuff: We finished last week with a math lesson & handwriting practice. Jimmy was very excited about handwriting, so he copied several words and even a few notes to people. (Shush, that's a secret for now!)
Today, we read our new FIAR book, The Clown of God by Tomie DePaola. It's a cute but sad story about an orphan boy who makes it in the world through his juggling talent. When that fails to sustain him in his old age, he returns back to the streets of his youth. He ends up in a church at Christmas, where the congregation brings Jesus their magnificent gifts. He has nothing to give from his poorness, but he remembers an encounter with monks during the height of his juggling fame. He dons his old costume & offers the Christ child his gift - his finest juggling. As he finishes his routine, he dies, but the originally sad-faced statue of Jesus is now smiling. Jimmy wondered at that, which really made me happy. We had a good chat about what gifts we can give God that will make Him happy. Hopefully, we'll be able to discuss this further tomorrow, when we take a closer look at orphans & other people in need. Today's "official" discussion was on reading comprehension. Early in the story, the boy juggles at a vegetable stand. Question - Why does he juggle there every day? Answer - Because the merchant feeds him soup when he is done. Question - Why does the merchant want the boy to juggle there? Answer - Because people buy vegetables while they are entertained by the juggling boy. A win-win situation! Jimmy remembered most of the answers, but he was a little fuzzy on the details. In the future, I think I should put reading comprehension discussions later in the week until he's able to read the book himself. Still, I think he did very well with this topic.
For math, we're continuing daily calendar work but Jimmy has really grasped the whole concept. I'm going to keep up daily calendar work as long as he's interested (he really loves pulling out "his" calendar), and especially as we're facing a very new month format - our first non-ber month - January. I am, however, planning to ad more look-ahead things. We've done Thanksgiving & Christmas, but I will add more everyday type things, like playdates, weekends with Grandma or Oma, etc.
Our math lesson today set up the next several lessons. We labeled 10 cans of food with made-up prices (ranged 1-10 cents). We put them in order from most expensive to least expensive. Jimmy was very disappointed when we put the cans away until the next lesson, so I had to tell him that we'll be pretending to buy the cans tomorrow.
Today's handwriting lesson was another big leap in Jimmy's progress. We read the Bible verse & associated story, but we jumped right into writing the LotW - L. But this time, instead of showing him how to write the letters, I wrote them on his notepad ahead of time. I also wrote words for him to copy (making sure to use all of the letters so far from A-L at least once). I gave him the pad to work on his own. He did a great job! The first few little a's were a little shaky, but we verbally reviewed how to write a little a, and his last few were perfect. He is really enjoying handwriting now, something I wasn't sure was going to happen for a good long time.
I declare today to be a good school day!
Today, we read our new FIAR book, The Clown of God by Tomie DePaola. It's a cute but sad story about an orphan boy who makes it in the world through his juggling talent. When that fails to sustain him in his old age, he returns back to the streets of his youth. He ends up in a church at Christmas, where the congregation brings Jesus their magnificent gifts. He has nothing to give from his poorness, but he remembers an encounter with monks during the height of his juggling fame. He dons his old costume & offers the Christ child his gift - his finest juggling. As he finishes his routine, he dies, but the originally sad-faced statue of Jesus is now smiling. Jimmy wondered at that, which really made me happy. We had a good chat about what gifts we can give God that will make Him happy. Hopefully, we'll be able to discuss this further tomorrow, when we take a closer look at orphans & other people in need. Today's "official" discussion was on reading comprehension. Early in the story, the boy juggles at a vegetable stand. Question - Why does he juggle there every day? Answer - Because the merchant feeds him soup when he is done. Question - Why does the merchant want the boy to juggle there? Answer - Because people buy vegetables while they are entertained by the juggling boy. A win-win situation! Jimmy remembered most of the answers, but he was a little fuzzy on the details. In the future, I think I should put reading comprehension discussions later in the week until he's able to read the book himself. Still, I think he did very well with this topic.
For math, we're continuing daily calendar work but Jimmy has really grasped the whole concept. I'm going to keep up daily calendar work as long as he's interested (he really loves pulling out "his" calendar), and especially as we're facing a very new month format - our first non-ber month - January. I am, however, planning to ad more look-ahead things. We've done Thanksgiving & Christmas, but I will add more everyday type things, like playdates, weekends with Grandma or Oma, etc.
Our math lesson today set up the next several lessons. We labeled 10 cans of food with made-up prices (ranged 1-10 cents). We put them in order from most expensive to least expensive. Jimmy was very disappointed when we put the cans away until the next lesson, so I had to tell him that we'll be pretending to buy the cans tomorrow.
Today's handwriting lesson was another big leap in Jimmy's progress. We read the Bible verse & associated story, but we jumped right into writing the LotW - L. But this time, instead of showing him how to write the letters, I wrote them on his notepad ahead of time. I also wrote words for him to copy (making sure to use all of the letters so far from A-L at least once). I gave him the pad to work on his own. He did a great job! The first few little a's were a little shaky, but we verbally reviewed how to write a little a, and his last few were perfect. He is really enjoying handwriting now, something I wasn't sure was going to happen for a good long time.
I declare today to be a good school day!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Jimmy's imagination
Today, we read My Blue Boat. Jimmy understood right away that the story was actually about a little girl pretending with her toy boat in the bathtub. After reading the book, we made up our own non-fiction-that-becomes-fiction story. We started describing our morning, and then we made up a silly little story about Jimmy falling off of something... up! He went to the moon, fell in the ocean, got run over by a boat, washed into a river, and traveled down a few waterfalls. The story ended by him crashing his head at the bottom of one of the waterfalls. *rolls eyes*
We started reviewing calendar work first thing in the morning. Randy asked him today's date as soon as Jimmy came to get us in the morning. He had trouble remembering Thursday, but Randy helped him repeat the days of the week. By the time we had our lessons, Jimmy remembered Thursday very easily. I'm going to keep drilling him on the days of the week. For our lesson, we introduced the demonstration clock. As I suspected, Jimmy was a little bored with this since he's been wearing & using his watch (thanks, Grandma!) for quite some time now. The book discusses both digital displays & conventional clocks, so Jimmy will definitely learn something new.
For LotW, Jimmy opted to write quite a bit this morning. He practiced K, k, J, & j, but also reviewed B, b, and D. He was a writing fanatic! I think he's almost ready to start copying words and short sentences. It's really amazing to see how much his confidence has grown. He really enjoys writing his letters now.
We started reviewing calendar work first thing in the morning. Randy asked him today's date as soon as Jimmy came to get us in the morning. He had trouble remembering Thursday, but Randy helped him repeat the days of the week. By the time we had our lessons, Jimmy remembered Thursday very easily. I'm going to keep drilling him on the days of the week. For our lesson, we introduced the demonstration clock. As I suspected, Jimmy was a little bored with this since he's been wearing & using his watch (thanks, Grandma!) for quite some time now. The book discusses both digital displays & conventional clocks, so Jimmy will definitely learn something new.
For LotW, Jimmy opted to write quite a bit this morning. He practiced K, k, J, & j, but also reviewed B, b, and D. He was a writing fanatic! I think he's almost ready to start copying words and short sentences. It's really amazing to see how much his confidence has grown. He really enjoys writing his letters now.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Happy Wednesday
We started by doing math. Jimmy did very well with his calendar work. We're going to have to work on what is the "month" and what is the "year" - he'll get them right, but only after guessing the day of the week and the date first. I think it's just his attention span. We've got lots of time to work on this, since we're doing calendar work for every math lesson, so I'm not worried. Today's lesson was using a pretend pocket (a drawing of a pocket on a piece of paper) & a pile of pennies to tell stories. We added pennies to the pocket & took some away, counting each time to find out how many pennies were still in the pocket. Jimmy declined the chance to tell his own story this morning. I think he was tired.
We read Yellow Ball next. Today, we talked about how the story was written in short, choppy phrases that were often only single words. I asked Jimmy to describe our living room that way. He would say something long-ish, and I would make it into a short, choppy phrase. Jimmy caught on right away, telling a very funny story about what Caleb was doing. Caleb, for his part, made sure to be very active so Jimmy had lots to tell. =)
We finished with LotW. We reviewed the J & K verses (the verses are down so we're just working on perfecting the references). The I wrote the sample J, j, K, and k's. Jimmy wrote his letters on his own. He chose to write them in this order: k, K, J, j. Not exactly sure why. All of his letters today got stars.
We read Yellow Ball next. Today, we talked about how the story was written in short, choppy phrases that were often only single words. I asked Jimmy to describe our living room that way. He would say something long-ish, and I would make it into a short, choppy phrase. Jimmy caught on right away, telling a very funny story about what Caleb was doing. Caleb, for his part, made sure to be very active so Jimmy had lots to tell. =)
We finished with LotW. We reviewed the J & K verses (the verses are down so we're just working on perfecting the references). The I wrote the sample J, j, K, and k's. Jimmy wrote his letters on his own. He chose to write them in this order: k, K, J, j. Not exactly sure why. All of his letters today got stars.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Interesting week - and it's only Tuesday
Yesterday, as we expected, Randy lost his job. So we're going to have family school for a while. It's going to be a little challenging to keep the boys focused on lessons when Daddy is home. Too bad he's so much fun! =)
This week, we're reading some of the Before FIAR books. I think I mentioned before that we have more weeks to do school than we had FIAR volume 1 books to row. ("Rowing" is reading a book for a period of time & doing educational activities based on the book.) This week's choices are Yellow Ball by Molly Bang and My Blue Boat by Chris L. Demarest. Yellow Ball ties into last week's Storm in the Night (which is good, since I'm trying to help Jimmy overcome fear; the storms in those books really help start the conversation), and My Blue Boat goes nicely with Yellow Ball since they are both books about being on the water.
Yesterday, we discussed fear again using the storm scenes in Yellow Ball. I pretended to be lightning (a wiggle of the fingers) and thunder (a loud "BOOM!"). Jimmy & I counted between the lightning & thunder. The storm came closer, was right over us, and then moved away from us. Jimmy had a lot of fun.
Today, we looked at the page in Yellow Ball where the moon is shining full above the calm ocean, where the yellow ball is gently riding the waves. I asked which was the moon & which was the ball, and then asked how we could tell the difference. We looked at this very same topic last year, but it was fun to see how much more advanced he is this year. Last year, he knew that the moon was the moon because it was in the sky. This year, he pointed out the slight differences in the color of the round objects (the ball had some yellow while the moon was only white). We looked at the moonbeam reflected on the water as well. He noticed a lot more clues this year & was able to articulate them very well.
Math lessons are going very well. Jimmy is getting extra calendar re-enforcement during Advent Calendar (with chocolates, of course) with Daddy at bedtime. Randy reviews what day it is (day of the week, month, date, and year), the "event" at the end of the countdown, and the real meaning of Christmas. They really enjoy this, and I can see their understanding grow during the countdown. Yesterday's math lesson was pennies in cups. I put out 11 cups - 1 with no pennies, 1 with 1 penny, 1 with 2 pennies, etc, until 1 with 10 pennies. Jimmy was given the number cards from 0-10 & asked to match the cups to their number cards. He got them all right, and he worked completely on his own (as in I was in the laundry room) for a good bit of it. Today's lesson was an evaluation. He had a little trouble with this test. The first part went very well - I held up a number card & asked him to show me that number in linking cubes. He passed each one. The second part involved me laying out linking cubes & Jimmy finding the matching number card. He didn't know that he could touch the cubes to count them, so he got 2 of the 3 wrong (he added one more than was there each time). When I told him that he could move them to count them, he got them all correct. When I re-read the teacher instructions, I realized that I probably should have had the cubes more directly in front of him instead of across the table. Mommy is learning here, too.
LotW is going very well this week. Since we didn't spend much time on the letter J last week, we're still reviewing it pretty heavily this week. Jimmy recited the J verse & practiced his J & j's yesterday before we got into K. We read the K verse & accompanying story. This week's verse is "Keep your tongue from evil." Psalm 34:13. Jimmy memorized the verse right away but still struggles with the reference. Today, we reviewed the J & K verses, practiced writing J & j, and introduced writing K & k. They look like easy letters, but it's tough to aim the middle of the sideways "V" to end up in the right place. Still, Jimmy's letters are all read-able. It's been a while since we had any major review of all of the previous letters, though, so I think we should look at doing that sometime over next week.
This week, we're reading some of the Before FIAR books. I think I mentioned before that we have more weeks to do school than we had FIAR volume 1 books to row. ("Rowing" is reading a book for a period of time & doing educational activities based on the book.) This week's choices are Yellow Ball by Molly Bang and My Blue Boat by Chris L. Demarest. Yellow Ball ties into last week's Storm in the Night (which is good, since I'm trying to help Jimmy overcome fear; the storms in those books really help start the conversation), and My Blue Boat goes nicely with Yellow Ball since they are both books about being on the water.
Yesterday, we discussed fear again using the storm scenes in Yellow Ball. I pretended to be lightning (a wiggle of the fingers) and thunder (a loud "BOOM!"). Jimmy & I counted between the lightning & thunder. The storm came closer, was right over us, and then moved away from us. Jimmy had a lot of fun.
Today, we looked at the page in Yellow Ball where the moon is shining full above the calm ocean, where the yellow ball is gently riding the waves. I asked which was the moon & which was the ball, and then asked how we could tell the difference. We looked at this very same topic last year, but it was fun to see how much more advanced he is this year. Last year, he knew that the moon was the moon because it was in the sky. This year, he pointed out the slight differences in the color of the round objects (the ball had some yellow while the moon was only white). We looked at the moonbeam reflected on the water as well. He noticed a lot more clues this year & was able to articulate them very well.
Math lessons are going very well. Jimmy is getting extra calendar re-enforcement during Advent Calendar (with chocolates, of course) with Daddy at bedtime. Randy reviews what day it is (day of the week, month, date, and year), the "event" at the end of the countdown, and the real meaning of Christmas. They really enjoy this, and I can see their understanding grow during the countdown. Yesterday's math lesson was pennies in cups. I put out 11 cups - 1 with no pennies, 1 with 1 penny, 1 with 2 pennies, etc, until 1 with 10 pennies. Jimmy was given the number cards from 0-10 & asked to match the cups to their number cards. He got them all right, and he worked completely on his own (as in I was in the laundry room) for a good bit of it. Today's lesson was an evaluation. He had a little trouble with this test. The first part went very well - I held up a number card & asked him to show me that number in linking cubes. He passed each one. The second part involved me laying out linking cubes & Jimmy finding the matching number card. He didn't know that he could touch the cubes to count them, so he got 2 of the 3 wrong (he added one more than was there each time). When I told him that he could move them to count them, he got them all correct. When I re-read the teacher instructions, I realized that I probably should have had the cubes more directly in front of him instead of across the table. Mommy is learning here, too.
LotW is going very well this week. Since we didn't spend much time on the letter J last week, we're still reviewing it pretty heavily this week. Jimmy recited the J verse & practiced his J & j's yesterday before we got into K. We read the K verse & accompanying story. This week's verse is "Keep your tongue from evil." Psalm 34:13. Jimmy memorized the verse right away but still struggles with the reference. Today, we reviewed the J & K verses, practiced writing J & j, and introduced writing K & k. They look like easy letters, but it's tough to aim the middle of the sideways "V" to end up in the right place. Still, Jimmy's letters are all read-able. It's been a while since we had any major review of all of the previous letters, though, so I think we should look at doing that sometime over next week.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Computer troubles
My laptop's power cable died over Thanksgiving, so I haven't been able to do much internet stuff. But thanks to my awesome hubby, I'm back up & running! Love ya, babe!
So... I was able to grab some time to look over the math curriculum. I sifted through a couple of dozen lessons & noted which ones we'll skip. I'm keeping the lessons that introduce new concepts or review concepts that Jimmy didn't immediately master. I'm also planning on adding the occasional easy concept just to keep him fresh on those ideas. But for now, we'll stick with what we're doing & skip lessons as appropriate. Once we've finished the book, I'll check to see if we should jump into 1st grade math or just do the calendar work plus computer games for the remainder of our school year.
This week's FIAR book is Storm in the Night by Mary Stolz. It's a story about a grandfather & grandson who pass the time during a thunderstorm power outage. So far, we've discussed Jimmy's favorite parts of the book (a Before FIAR trick that I used for this book b/c it was a much longer book than we're used to reading), how to handle fear (both of real danger, reviewing Very Last First Time, and things we realize aren't dangerous... like Jimmy's fear of spiders that aren't really there), and how an author can use punctuation to help tell the story (italics for emphasis & quotation marks to show that someone is talking). Lots of major things this week. Jimmy especially had fun with the italics as we read the book today. We've seen italics before, in Night of the Moonjellies for the name of the boat Periwinkle. I guess I'm going a little italics-crazy in this post, too. LOL!
For math, we skipped a few lessons to get to some pattern work with linking cubes (kept it in b/c it used the December calendar's color pattern) and some matching number of pennies to a number card. Jimmy is still figuring out the concept of zero. He knows what zero means, but he is still placing the 0 card after 10 instead of before 1. I'm using the countdown method to help him remember - he knows that 0 follows 1 in a countdown. I haven't done math with him yet today (we had visitors this morning, which threw off our schedule), but I'm not worried since we're don't have anywhere near a tight timeline to complete the curriculum.
This week's LotW is J. Jimmy is excited for obvious reasons. He very nearly has the Bible verse memorized (Jesus said to them, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." John 14:6). He practiced writing big J and little j on Tuesday. He needs to smooth out his lines, but they were mostly readable letters. The dot over the little j has improved significantly since he wrote his i's. Jimmy gets very excited when we add a new letter post-it-note (a gift from Grandmom) to his bathroom mirror. I love how his face lights up as he thinks about his progress this year.
Since it is now Advent, I planned to change our music lessons to Christmas music. Well, both boys are going to be in our church's Christmas Program (a children's choir concert), and they were given CD's of the music they'll be singing. What a perfect fit! They beg to hear Pastor Jeff's CD. It's so much fun to hear them try to sing along. I'm nervous about the concert, tho... both of them tend to be hams. It's cute, of course, but I'm getting to be known as the mom of the scene stealers. Sigh.
So... I was able to grab some time to look over the math curriculum. I sifted through a couple of dozen lessons & noted which ones we'll skip. I'm keeping the lessons that introduce new concepts or review concepts that Jimmy didn't immediately master. I'm also planning on adding the occasional easy concept just to keep him fresh on those ideas. But for now, we'll stick with what we're doing & skip lessons as appropriate. Once we've finished the book, I'll check to see if we should jump into 1st grade math or just do the calendar work plus computer games for the remainder of our school year.
This week's FIAR book is Storm in the Night by Mary Stolz. It's a story about a grandfather & grandson who pass the time during a thunderstorm power outage. So far, we've discussed Jimmy's favorite parts of the book (a Before FIAR trick that I used for this book b/c it was a much longer book than we're used to reading), how to handle fear (both of real danger, reviewing Very Last First Time, and things we realize aren't dangerous... like Jimmy's fear of spiders that aren't really there), and how an author can use punctuation to help tell the story (italics for emphasis & quotation marks to show that someone is talking). Lots of major things this week. Jimmy especially had fun with the italics as we read the book today. We've seen italics before, in Night of the Moonjellies for the name of the boat Periwinkle. I guess I'm going a little italics-crazy in this post, too. LOL!
For math, we skipped a few lessons to get to some pattern work with linking cubes (kept it in b/c it used the December calendar's color pattern) and some matching number of pennies to a number card. Jimmy is still figuring out the concept of zero. He knows what zero means, but he is still placing the 0 card after 10 instead of before 1. I'm using the countdown method to help him remember - he knows that 0 follows 1 in a countdown. I haven't done math with him yet today (we had visitors this morning, which threw off our schedule), but I'm not worried since we're don't have anywhere near a tight timeline to complete the curriculum.
This week's LotW is J. Jimmy is excited for obvious reasons. He very nearly has the Bible verse memorized (Jesus said to them, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." John 14:6). He practiced writing big J and little j on Tuesday. He needs to smooth out his lines, but they were mostly readable letters. The dot over the little j has improved significantly since he wrote his i's. Jimmy gets very excited when we add a new letter post-it-note (a gift from Grandmom) to his bathroom mirror. I love how his face lights up as he thinks about his progress this year.
Since it is now Advent, I planned to change our music lessons to Christmas music. Well, both boys are going to be in our church's Christmas Program (a children's choir concert), and they were given CD's of the music they'll be singing. What a perfect fit! They beg to hear Pastor Jeff's CD. It's so much fun to hear them try to sing along. I'm nervous about the concert, tho... both of them tend to be hams. It's cute, of course, but I'm getting to be known as the mom of the scene stealers. Sigh.
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