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!