Ashley began her session with a math game called Missing Number. The game is an algebra based find the missing number game. One person closes their eyes while the other player puts counters under a cup. The player opens their eyes and can only see what is outside of the cup and needs to solve for the missing number. Ashley played this game with sums of 10, 12 and 14 and picked up the concept quickly. This game is a great way for Ashley to practice her addition and subtraction facts. We transitioned to a literacy game called Context Clues: Pirate Treasure. In the game, players must make their way across a tropical island in a search for gold. Each player reads different story cards with short passages and must use context clues to answer the questions. Ashley did very well finding the clues within the text to help her answer the questions correctly. Ashley ended her session by listening to a level K non-fiction book on the Raz Kids reading program. After listening to the story, she took the comprehension quiz and worked on returning to the story to find evidence before answering questions that she was unsure of.

5 paragraph essay about Savannah trip

Dylan did a very good job with the essay today. He has a lot of trouble with starting a paper, so we spent a good deal of time focusing on pre-writing, topic sentences, and the thesis statement. In the past, he's had a tendency to change topics mid-paragraph, so we really focused on picking one topic, and then using the different examples to emphasize the point. He tends to think of the examples as the topic. On the whole, it was a productive session and I was very pleased with his effort and focus.

It was so nice meeting Ashley today! This afternoon Ashley and I began our session by reading "Shampoodle" by Joan Holub. Ashley and I took turns reading every other page in the book. After we finished reading this book we began playing Wingo. Ashley would pick a tile and she had to combine the 2 parts on the tile and say the word they created. Ashley was excited that she won the game! We completed a worksheet in which Ashley had to read a sentence with a missing word. Then, she had to read three other words and determine which one was the missing word from the sentence. We finished by reading half of "The Cat in the Hat is Back" book. Ashley did very well today.

Ethan performed reading practice activities on Raz Kids today. We used the iPad and recorded him reading the stories aloud. We discussed oral reading fluency elements (pausing and voice inflection). Additionally we discussed using the illustrations, context clues, and determining what sounds right when trying to read unfamiliar words. He read “Cook as Cuke” and “Weird Bird Beaks” and then listened to the playback with his voice reading. He scored 7/7 on both of those quizzes. He listed to the reading of “The Day I Needed Help” and scored 5/5 on the quiz. Finally, we reviewed his spelling words, in which he only needed a little help with “steam” and “many”.

Bobby engaged in collaborative, sustained reading about the Olympics' outcomes. We talked about many conventions of writing as we read, and he self-corrected, and corrected his reading as prompted. We discussed: comma usage, use and purpose of italics in writing, use and purpose of parentheses in writing, making inferences based on language, references, and the function of hyperlinks in websites. As we read, we also discussed pertinent geography and history. He decoded many challenging, new words, and read fluently and with great emphasis. We completed a word ladder activity requiring him to solve riddles about words using the vowels: 'ai', 'ou', 'au'. He also completed an activity which required choosing appropriate punctuation to complete the narrative text.

It was so nice meeting Yanuell this morning. He was very excited to tell me all about penguins. We began by taking a picture walk back by through the book Mrs. Kara and Yanuell had already read. Yanuell told me all about the different types of penguins. He especially liked how tall the emperor penguin is. Then Yanuell colored and cut out the book Penguin Sees. Yanuell added pictures of snowflakes and fish to accurately depict what the page said. For example "the penguin sees a fish". We then stapled the book together and read it together. Yanuell then wanted to write in his journal. He drew a picture of binoculars. He forgot what they were called but used his hands to show me what he meant. He then wrote the sentence "binoculars let us see far away. We finished our session by reading a book about the movie Monsters University.

reading/chapter notes

We started off talking about the short story we read last week. Again, Dylan impressed me with how well he remembered what we read. I think short stories are easier for him as there is less material to contend with, which is why I'm trying to get him to take notes after reading each chapter. To that end, we went through the most recent chapter he read and talked about how to take notes. He's very good at spotting the important information, and has excellent summarization skills. He did a great job and the process should help him in the future.

Josh and I completed our reading assignment "Climbing the Golden Arches." Afterwards, I had Josh recount (while citing evidence) some of the key transitional points in the narrative: "Where does the story transition from different phases of the narrator's work experience to the next?" "Who is the narrator by the end of the story?" "If the narrator did not explain that she was learning and maturing along the way, how would this affect the narrative?". Josh did an excellent job of answering these questions, although he needed to be refocused from "Family Guy" references during our discussions. After discussing the story at length, we moved on to writing, and I asked Josh to write a story about a work experience that he had, organizing his experience into different "phases" much like the narrator from "Climbing the Golden Arches."

Ashley began her session by playing an addition math game that involved playing cards. A deck of cards is assembled in a game board and each player rolls a die to see how many spaces they move. When they land on the designated card - the player must quickly add the number on the die to the number on the playing card. During the game, we discussed doubles facts and doubles plus or minus one, as well as addition facts involving 10. Next, Ashley moved onto phonics work involving -onk, -ong, -unk, -and -ung. She practiced saying the different ending sounds and the subtleties between the vowels that accompany them. She worked successfully though several workbook pages to practice. Following the phonics work, Ashley and I played a game called A to Z Junior. The game is a fast-paced naming game that involves many different categories. A to Z helps develop recall speed, decision-making skills and build vocabulary. Ashley and I collaborated together to try to see how many spaces we could fill on the game board. She really enjoyed playing several rounds of the game. We ended the session by listening to Sam's Fourth of July, a level K book on Raz Kids. Following the story, we discussed the events, characters, and setting and then Ashley took the comprehension quiz.

Discuss reading from this week
Read The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Dylan seems to be doing a good job with his reading in school, but needs to remember to make chapter notes after he reads each chapter. He's great at talking about what he reads, but this will help him pay better attention to details when it comes test time. We then read The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but didn't have time to discuss it.