Today, Oliver and I worked to begin typing and editing some of the paragraphs he had written on paper previously with Ms. Kara. To correctly write the paragraphs, Oliver and I worked through editing and typing two of the five paragraphs. Some of the corrections that Oliver worked on included adding punctuation or dividing a run on sentence into two coherent sentences. Oliver was shown the function of the Shift key for creating capital letters in the standard English keyboard.
We sang through our familiar warm-ups to begin our voice lesson today. Right away, I noticed that Oliver was working very hard to remain in "head voice", the lighter, freer range (as opposed to the chest voice, the pressed and less-than-agile "speaking" range). This is one of the hardest habits to break and he is well on his way! Huge improvement! Oliver remained focused, attentive, and on-task for the entirety of our lesson! I am so very proud of his progress. We sang through our two songs, Brahms' Lullaby and I'm Gonna Mail Myself To You and I heard a marked improvement in breath support, diction, and tone quality. Nice work today!
I am ecstatic to report that Oliver had a GREAT day today! We played through the C and G tetrachords (a "baby scale") and we began working through whole 8-note scales. This takes some serious focus and perseverance and Oliver rose to the challenge! His hard work paid off and he played through the C major and G major scales with correct fingering in both hands! Hooray! We also played through some solo literature of his choosing: "Lazy Mary" and "Betty and Bill", both from the Alfred's Technique book. Lazy Mary offered a chance to use left and right hands interchanging, like a musical "question and answer", passing off the melody seamlessly between the two hands. Betty and Bill gave us the chance to try crossing left hand over right to end the song on a high C. This is especially challenging when trying to keep a steady tempo and not slow down when executing this tricky maneuver. I can't say it enough: Oliver progressed leaps and bounds ahead of where he was last week. Bravo!
Oliver and I began our P.E. session today by doing some stretches outdoors. I had him stretch his arms, legs, and back. We played a round of horse in basketball, however Oliver lost interest in the game after about 10 minutes. Next we devised an obstacle course for Oliver to achieve on the playground set. Using a stop watch, I had Oliver record my time through the obstacle course, and then I recorded his time through the course. Oliver completed the obstacle course in exactly 1 minute and 0.04 seconds. Due to the severe heat, Oliver and I spent the last five minutes of P.E. indoors doing some Calisthenics Including leg lifts, arm presses, and toe flexes.
Today, Oliver and I began class by using a number of beads to talk about ratios. We found the ratios between black magnetite beads and the other beads included in the kit I brought for Oliver. I explained to Oliver ways that magnets can be made from the magnetite mineral. We discussed different patterns possible for putting the various beads onto a thread. Oliver and I worked on understanding the use of a colon to show a ratio. We discussed how ratios are similar to fractions, and how we can simplify ratios just like we can simplify fractions. Finally, we began a discussion of adding, subtracting, and multiplying decimals. Oliver was able to fairly easily add and subtract decimal numbers. He also showed some ability to multiply decimals by a whole number, however he needs more practice to master this skill.
Today, we discussed ways to simplify fractions into simplest form using factors. We discussed ways to add and subtract fractions with like denominators and find a least common denominator in order to add and subtract fractions beginning with unlike denominators. Oliver was able to work through a number of problems to simplify fractions and determine the least common denominators for adding and subtracting fractions.
Oliver began his session by going over his five senses writing piece. He was able to quickly re-read what he had written the night before and jump into writing. Oliver had several great ideas about the importance of the ear and it's structure that he included in his writing. He was able to finish the rough copy of the essay and will type it into Microsoft Word tomorrow to begin the editing and revision process. He ended the session reviewing the reading assignment that he completed for homework. Oliver's short answer written response questions were quite short and lacking support - so we discussed ways to improve upon the answers and he was planning to work on them for homework.
Oliver worked on continuing his five senses writing project today. He did a lot of verbal brainstorming but had some difficulty translating his ideas to paper. He wanted to turn the essay into a creative writing piece and we worked on strategies to refocus on the topic at hand. We will continue to work on this writing activity throughout the week.
Oliver is working on more advanced lessons with using the top row keys. We then looked through the books I brought from the library sorting them into different categories to narrow our research questions down for the purpose of organizing our presentation. He also wrote a paragraph and edited it.
Today, Oliver and I worked primarily on understanding ways to manipulate and use fractions. I also explained to him the idea behind remainders in division and how these remainders can actually be written out as fractions that still have a numerical value associated with them. I explained to Oliver ways to convert from fractions into estimated decimal numbers. We also worked through a number of problems to simplify fractions and determine ways to find out which of two fractions is bigger.
