. Nicholas shared his yearbook with me and asked me to read some of the names
. Nicholas read The Lost Ring, The Lost Dog, and A Whiz Kid
. Together we read Fred and Ted Go Camping, Flap Your Wings, and Big Dog, Little Dog

We began by reviewing Nicholas's math homework, which he had done in Aftercare at his school. He is working on duplicating 3 – dimensional shapes and was tasked with identifying which model from 4 examples given represented the shape shown if replicated. As Nicholas had 3 wrong answers on his homework sheet, I used actual Legos to help him see how the shapes would look if duplicated. This hands-on concrete technique seemed to help him a little. When we moved on to spelling, Nicholas insisted the spelling words he had been given were incorrect. I emailed his teacher, Mrs. Miner, who replied back that they were, in fact, the correct words on which he will be tested this Friday. Nicholas became defensive when he was told Mrs. Miner's response, and kept repeating, “I didn’t know.” He wanted to go out and play outdoors, but I asked him to practice a few words and he could go out at the end of the session, time permitting. We were able to practice 3 of the eight words. We reviewed some strategies and techniques to facilitate memorization and engage other modalities, such as touch, before it was time for the session to end.

Nicholas read The Lost Dog, Dash on the Path.
I read Fred and Ted Go Camping and Big Dog, Little Dog to Nicholas.
We read Go, Dog, Go together.

Nicholas is learning to discern a pattern or structure in shapes. He worked on his math homework assignment (p. 213 in his Go Math Workbook) and completed questions asking him to identify shapes with flat and curved surfaces and specify how many flat surfaces are in cylinders, rectangular prisms, cones, and cubes. We then moved onto spelling words. Nicholas grew very tired and easily frustrated when asked to say and sound out his 8 new words. He may be getting a cold, as he was coughing a lot, and this may have impeded his concentration skills. We will resume practicing the words on Wednesday.

. Nicholas practiced his spelling words
. I read the Stickaroos ocean book
. I read The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor

We began the session with Nicholas accompanying me at the piano, singing and repeating simple rhythmic and tonal patterns. Nicholas enjoyed this and then asked to create his own songs, which he did using a variety of different instruments to reproduce various sounds. As he is not at all shy, he freely and uninhibitedly sang lyrics to convey his mood, and thoughts. We then engaged in creative imaginative play, observed the tadpole which had almost completely changed into a frog and discussed what they ate. This was followed by a game of 'inventive' chess, with Nicholas creating novel rules as we played.

- Nicholas read The Lost Dog and The Gum.
- I read Sea Turtles Hatching.
- We read Today I Will Fly and Let's Go for a Drive together.

Nicholas practiced his (8) spelling words to prepare for Friday's test. He has been making more of an effort to sound out the words phonetically; however he as yet requires prompts to remember to add vowels before consonant endings. Nicholas was given a practice test on which he got 4 out of 8 words correct; he had difficulty with 'much,' 'new,' 'name' and 'save,' so we practiced those some more at the end of the session. We then reviewed his math homework, which he had done in Aftercare (page 207 and 208 in his Go Math workbook). In Math, Nicholas is working on interpreting and comparing information from tally graphs and has begun using information from the tally charts with which to make bar graphs. He was a bit challenged when working on problems that are worded: "How many more children have one item over another?” Nicholas tends to add instead of subtract; he becomes misled by the wording and interprets 'more' to mean he should add. We reviewed some strategies to help him better understand this concept.

- Nicholas read The Lost Dog and Dot and Mit.
- Nicholas practiced his spelling words.
- I read some of Sea Turtles Hatching.

Nicholas started out the session a bit tired, but after allowing him 3 minutes to rest, he rallied and sat at the desk to work on his math homework. Nicholas used tally charts to answer questions and problem solve. He did well on this assignment, but had a bit of difficulty understanding he needed to subtract when asked how many more children chose a certain item than another. We reviewed this problem using concrete strategies to enable Nicholas to better understand how to arrive at the answer using subtraction. I explained that the word more doesn't necessarily mean addition. Nicholas listened attentively during my explanation and was able to complete the next problem independently. He also was required to use the > and < signs to solve problems and did well on these when it was explained using information from the tally chart. The last question required that Nicholas add two-digit numbers together, and he arrived at the sum without difficulty although he questioned himself initially. He was so pleased with his performance that he asked me to take pictures of him with his work. We finished up the session reviewing this week’s spelling words; however, Nicholas did not bring home his folder and we needed to rely on his agenda in which he wrote the words. All but one were legible and Nicholas demonstrated greater attention and effort practicing sounding out and spelling the words. We will continue to review these words this Wednesday to prepare for Friday's spelling test.