Today I gave Kelcy a paper chain challenge which made him think about size, shape, length, and measurement! We also reviewed sight words, read some new books, and played his Sight Word War game! I'll be sending this game home for you all to play together! The entire concept of the game was his plan - he is very proud and LOVES it!!!

It's been such a pleasure to be with your amazing child over the last few months. Thank you for sharing him with me and I hope to see as much of him as possible in the new year! Merry Christmas!

Today Mila did her first writing with me - I was able to see her strengths in using known sight words and stretching out words to phonetically spell! She did a great job on writing a story about Santa Claus!

We also read some of our favorite books and brainstormed a list of stories (Narrative) she could tell and topics she is an expert on (How-To).

Today Kelcy showed me a Star Wars math game given to him by Ms. Maylie! We did a little math practice playing it :)

We updated our word wall with all the words he has acquired recently. In his bag I have added a Winter Break Journal where he can draw pictures and write over the break, new and old sight words, and plenty of books to read! We worked together to make a sight word "War" card game today, which he LOVES and I will send home over break as well! I hope you enjoy the portrait he made!

Today Kelcy completed his writing and gift for his parents! He was excited to read it and even shared it with Elise in the front! I am so proud of his confidence and willingness to share - that is huge progress!!!

We finished our session making pomanders out of oranges and cloves - great fine motor skills work as he made designs and even wrote his name with cloves on the pomander.

Today Kelcy and I practiced sight words with games, read a few of the books from his book baggie (introducing new words) and finished by working on his winter story (gift for Mom and Dad).

The second part of our session was spent in a parent conference with Mom and Dad :).

Today Kelcy and I reviewed the sight words he learned over the weekend - he remembered many! I sent some of them home tonight to get a little more practice. Thank you for your support at home!

The rest of the session was spent using those words in Kelcy's writing. We developed an idea for a winter story, which will be a part of Kelcy's gift to Mom and Dad :) He wrote and illustrated several pages in his new book today.

We briefly played a memory (or "concentration") game using doubles of sight words he is learning. He has a fantastic picture memory and usually remembers the placement of the cards after only one exposure! He loves playing that game!

Today was a most productive session with Nicholas. We began by using alphabet cards and asking Nicholas to identify seven letters and articulate the sound of each. We reviewed which letters made the bounce sounds ('P' and 'T') and those that made the stretch sounds 'N','S','L''A'and 'F'. He particularly enjoyed emphasizing the staccato-sounding bounce sounds. Nicholas was next tasked with matching pictures to the name of their corresponding (7) letters, with improvements noted over the past few sessions. Nicholas succesfully accomplished this task, but needed prompts for "tiny turtle'- growing a bit frustrated when we could not find "lazy lion" amongst the pictures in the batch. We then moved on to environmental print pictures for the letters 'N,' 'S,' 'L,' P,'A,'and 'T'. Nicholoas was able to match and articulate 6 stretch sounds (such as 'Sssssstop' and 'Lllllucky Charms,' and 2 bounce sounds ('Pppppizza Hut' and 'Ttttttelevision'. He did well on all, but questioned and hesitated before matching television to the picture of a Target store. Please note that Nicholas was permitted to indulge in short bursts of elective activity in between tasks to facilitate his attention, which helped him to sustain it for the duration of the session. Next on the agenda, Nicholas was asked to match capital and lower case letters. He enjoyed punching the letters out of their foam-based template and was asked to match environmental pictures with their corresponding letter mates. Nicholas achieved this task with 85% accuracy, which included success with the letter'f' for the very first time. He did, however, require prompting for the letter 'N', asking "is it the letter that my name starts with?" before committing to identifying and matching it. Despite his initial reluctance and prefacing performance by saying, "I don't know how to do this, or "I never did this before", Nicholas did as instructed with good accuracy and success. Overall, he enjoyed matching upper case letters to their 'best friend' lower case letters and having the magnets stick together more than he did the decoding activities or tasks having him match words to their pictorial counterparts, including the environmental print words (signs, labels, and trademarks). Next, to consolidate the recently acquired letter 'F' sound, we used a fun little song in which the letter sound was exaggerated, or stretched. Nicholas enjoyed piping in the 'f' words after hearing it and singing it together a few times. We also sang a Jingle Bell song, in which we substituted the letter 'f' for the beginning letters of each word. Nicholas had a bit more difficulty with this activity, but got a huge kick out of hearing this tutor singing "Fingle Fells, Fingle Fells, Fingle fall the fay" - trying to chime in as requested, but reverting to the original, and laughing at our dual comedic performance. It was a delightful way to end a most productive session. We enjoyed a good laugh and ate some popcorn to celebrate gains made in on-task performance, sound-letter correspondence, and increased phonemic awareness.

Today I finished updating some early literacy assessments with Kelcy - collecting data for our upcoming conference!

I gave Kelcy a book baggie! We added several brand new sight words to this bag and some fiction and non-fiction early reading books! It would be great if you could practice reading and/or sight words for 15-20 minutes each day. This home-school connection will definitely benefit his growth this year! I'm so excited about his progress.

Today was my second session with Mila - it was dedicated to assessing her math skills!

We assessed the following skills (using loose parts/manipulatives):
number names/count sequence...
count to tell number of objects...
comparing numbers...
understand addition as putting together...
understand subtraction as taking apart or taking from...
classify objects and count number of objects in each category...

We also touched briefly on measurement and geometry (shapes)! Mila appeared on grade level for most of the assessments given. She is eager to try out each task and can easily explain the thinking behind any of her actions. I'm excited to see her next week and learn more about her passions and begin writing together as well!

Today Kelcy and I continued work on a Christmas art present for mom and dad. It is turning out incredible!

Later we did a mini-lesson on Fiction and Non-Fiction books. We talked about he characteristics of each one, looked at examples, and sorted our books based on what we learned! We read a Ficiton and Non-Fiction book about Polar Bears to illustrate the difference. After one read, Kelcy was reading the NF book "Polar Bears" on his own (completely using the first letter sound and the picture to decode each word. It was AWESOME! He agreed to read this book for Mom when she arrived :) I am so incredibly PROUD of our READER!

I will bring more NF starter books to read with Kelcy and to send home for him to practice over the weekend!