Today Ethan and I read about a debate that is taking place in the public school system. The name of the debate is: "A Dodgy Call". It is about whether dodge ball should be banned from schools. Both sides of the argument are presented in this article (found on read works.org) and then a series of questions follow on. Ethan gave his argument at the end of the article which is he would NOT ban dodge ball from school and he presented his reasons. He thinks it is fun, not dangerous and that it is good exercise.
Today Gracyn and I read 2 stories. The first one (which she requested) is called "The Three Little Javelinas" by Susan Lowell. It's a twist on "The Three Little Pigs Story. She really likes this book. The second book we read is called "Little Red Riding Hood". She asked many questions about what was happening in the book and luckily it has a happy ending!! She asked me if I would do some Sign Language with her so we spent time on that as well. (She was asking me how to sign certain signs.)
Today in Reading Ethan and I started to read a book called "My Teacher Turns into a Tyrannosaurus" by Kim Caraher. We read using the parallel method. He seems to enjoy this book and at times he was reading with a British accent. He wanted to try and read the book "Stink" again but he got bored quickly and decided he didn't like it. We agreed that we would parallel read the book "Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Third Wheel" for the final minutes of our session today.
Since it is still National Poetry Month we read another poem and Ethan answered questions regarding this poem. I let him choose the poem and he chose another Robert Frost poem entitled "Dust of Snow". This poem has a higher lexile than "Snowy Evening" but he did well answering the questions after we spoke about the tone and message that the poem is trying to convey. We also finished reading a short story called : "A Museum of Their Own" about African American baseball players. We finished the session by doing parallel reading. The book he chose is "The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Third Wheel".
This month is National Poetry Month so we read a Robert Frost Poem called "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". After we read it Ethan answered questions about the poem. (Examples: What is the setting, the theme and the effect of the poem). He did very well and seemed to enjoy this poem. We finished the session by reading a few pages of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Third Wheel".
Today Ben chose a book to read called 'My Teacher Turns into a Tyrannosaurus." by Kim Caraher. He seemed to like this book and it kept his attention as it was funny. I managed to show him a few signs today such as cold, north, science,and wait. He did sign yes to me and please. We agreed that he would like to read the Dragon Slayers Academy (number one) next week when we meet.
Today we covered a lesson about IDIOMS. Some of these idioms Ethan already knew (for example he knows what "hit the hay" means). Some that were new to him were "two heads are better than one" and "that poor guy is all washed up"! Ethan wanted to continue reading a book we had started 2 weeks ago. That book is called "Cabin Fever" (Diary of a Wimpy Kid series). I continued where we left off. We spent several minutes reviewing vocabulary words that he did not know. The session was cut short by 10 minutes as Ethan had to get ready to go to a ball game.
Today Ethan chose a new book to start reading. The name of it is: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Third Wheel. The school does not have a copy of this book (I ordered a copy) so Ethan read the entire time to me. He stopped now and then to answer questions about the setting and the characters. He did well with his reading and there was only one vocabulary word to disuss today (affectionate).
Today we read 2 stories on read works.com. They were both about Mars. These are short non-fiction stories that Ben chose for me to read and discuss. The first story was about the planet Mars and what we currently know about it. The second story was about the new NASA missions to Mars and what they are hoping to find out. I showed him a few new signs about planets (planet, space, red planet).
