Test day!

We started our lessons with another reading of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Usually, I save our discussion for after reading it through once, but today's lesson was on the artwork. So before we started reading the book, we stopped on the first few pages (the title page & the first page with the words of the poem) to look closely at the illustrations. Susan Jeffers, the illustrator, uses only a touch of color in these drawings. In the beginning of the book, Jimmy insisted that more color was always better. But as we read through the book & observed the illustrations, Jimmy noticed that the little bit of color helped to highlight certain things in the pictures. Once we finished the book, he grudgingly admitted that some pictures look nice with only a little bit of color. He still said, though, that he would like using lots and lots and lots of color more than just a little bit of color.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I cut back on the calendar work. Jimmy noticed... and demanded that we fill in the calendar. So I did just the basics of our calendar work, ignoring the normal script from the teacher's manual. That worked. For the lesson portion of math today, we had a test. We used our 0-10 number cards. I spread them out randomly on the coffee table, pointed to each one, and asked Jimmy to tell me what they were. He passed that part with flying colors. The 2nd half of the test didn't go so well. I asked Jimmy to put the numbers in order, which he did... backwards. =( I explained what was wrong & told him that he didn't pass. The teacher's manual allows for re-testing later in the curriculum, so we'll go back to this (as well as a few other minor test errors) later in the school year.

We finished up with LotW work. Jimmy & I worked on his N memory verse, and then Jimmy practiced writing N, n, & m. I added the m because I noticed that he writes pretty funky m's when he writes his name. It's a line with three lines drawn underneath. So we reviewed how to write n & m: a straight half line (from the dotted line to the bottom line) with a hump (or two) from close to the dotted line, up, & straight down. Better, but they all still need some work. I think we'll keep N, n, & m practice while we add O & o. Perhaps a bunch of "no," "on," and "Mom" practice.