Today, Gracyn played a board game that challenges both listening and reading comprehension. This was a different version of one we had played before and required Gracyn to not just listen to the story but also make connections. To make sure Gracyn is able to successfully play the game, I help her with reading and parsing out the parts of the story.

Family trip...

Today we orally presented the drawing of her family that Gracyn worked on last week. Also, we are preparing an article for the school newspaper.

We began with "Batter Up," which focused on A-B-C-D and E. We then played through several pieces in the Bastien method primer. Next we learned a portion of "It's a Small World," reinforcing middle C postion. Finally, Gracyn listened to a J.S. Bach piece on the piano.

Greeting and explain about karate...
Setting the groundwork with some basic drills...
Learn the following : How to punch, how to do a front kick, how to do a horse stance and how to do an upper block...
Complete the class with a self defense fighting drill...

Gracyn finished her animal report on snow leopards today. We reviewed all of the information she wrote in her report and she made a snow leopard poster. She looked up pictures of snow leopards on the computer and chose a few to put on her poster. She glued them on and made a collage and stapled her report to the bottom. When she finished her poster, she presented it and did a fabulous job conveying all the information she had researched. She proudly displayed her report in the hallway.

Gracyn solved elapsed time related word problems. She was given a blank clock and a time scenario then had to write the correct time on the clock. We used a Judy clock which allows a hands on approach showing elapsed time in 5 min intervals. The clock had visible functioning gears that maintain correct hour hand and minute hand relationships. The last 10 minutes were spent on the game Playing With Time Game. We each took turns drawing a card with time related questions. If answered correctly, we moved ahead the number of spaces indicated on the card until the first player reached the finish space.

Today we played the Groundhog Yoga game. We got into groundhog pose (child) and decided to be spring or winter when we arose. Spring poses could be butterfly, lotus flower, bee, etc., or creative poses. Winter included snowball rolling, snow boarding (warrior jump), fire log, snowflakes. Gracyn created a new flower pose today with legs up in the air and feet pointed out like a tulip. We then printed out a coloring sheet for the Warrior pose which Gracyn colored. We ended class outdoors for 10 minutes on the hammocks for relaxation.

Gracyn and I started a new chapter book, 'Amber Brown is Not a Crayon', noticing how the author introduces the characters and setting. She read a Raz-Kids story for her guided practice, with accuracy and comprehension. We continued word study of open, closed and silent e syllables. She read a Piggy book for her independent practice and just for fun!

We began with chapter 4, "Into the Castle" of our Magic Tree House book, The Knight at Dawn. This chapter gave a lot of detail about the feast that was occurring in the castle. When we went to complete our follow up questions, Gracyn couldn't remember many of the details. There was a lot of information presented at one time so we spoke about ways to remember the details. We also discussed how we can go back into the text to find missing information. Additionally, we talked about new vocabulary words such as a (water) well. Gracyn continued reading a fiction story she started last week entitled, Splat the Cat: Blow, Snow, Blow by Rob Scotton. This book provides for good practice of reading tricky blends and clusters (two and three consonants together in words). We worked on chunking sounds together in tricky words to sound them out. We laughed at how Splat tried to make snow with ice, feathers from a pillow, and a fan!