Today for History, Baylie took an open book test on the California Gold Rush and the Oregon Territory. She did super work. For Science, a review of Chapter 6, Matter, was completed.

This afternoon, Macy enjoyed a short recess time on the playground. She then began reading Pinkalicious: Pinkie Promise by Victoria Kann. We made predictions, worked on sounding out words, and discussed the story for comprehension. She did a terrific job with her reading!

We kicked off our session with spelling work. Morgan looked over list 27 and chose 10 words for focus this week. These words use the suffixes -ly, -ful, and -ness. We reviewed that if the word ends with a consonant and a y, then you change the y to i and add the suffix. Her list included words such as happily, wonderful, helpful, and sadness. She also chose two of the four vocabulary words from the lesson and looked up the definitions in the included student dictionary. She chose forgetful and lonely. We also looked up the bonus word, stifle, in the children’s dictionary. Also in the text, she sorted the full list by each of the three suffixes. In literature, we read chapter 7 of The Trumpet of the Swan. We made predictions and discussed the content for comprehension. In this chapter, Sam takes Louis the swan to school as he wants to learn to read and write due to his defective voice. We discussed the vocabulary words slate, pupil, and rapped in our reading. As we read, we looked at context clues to help Morgan come up with a meaning for the words captivity, communicate, compliment, and catastrophe. Morgan then used each of these words in writing her own sentence. Morgan then answered four short answer comprehension check questions. For the focused vocabulary for this chapter, Morgan wrote the definitions for refuge, captivity, and catastrophe in her project journal and we discussed the meanings. For Latin today, we reviewed the six vocabulary words in order to match the English meanings with the Latin words. We also reviewed that these terms reflect the verb “to be” and that this shows how things are, not an action.

We read The Three Little Pigs and stopped in between to analyze characters i.e. Do you think the little piggy should trust this wolf? We also got creative and made letters in poses outdoors and Macy came up with the idea that she would create the lower case letters while I create the upper case letters. At the beginning and end of our time Macy asked to listen to the birds which is so amazing because she is doing transitioning herself and knows when she needs a breather!!!!! We learned this technique in yoga class! ( To just close our eyes and listen for a few moments...)

This morning we practiced Morgan’s list spelling and vocabulary words. She had difficulties with three of the words which we practiced extra. Later in our session, she took her test. She scored 11/12 and did get her WOW bonus word correct. We then moved into literature. We did a shared reading of chapters 5 and 6. In chapter 5, we read about Louis, the cygnet who has no voice. We discussed the terms utter, amusement, noble, and candidly. For follow-up, Morgan answered three short answer comprehension check questions. Additionally, she completed a speech bubble to reflect what she felt Louis was thinking after talking with his dad. She did a nice job writing three informative sentences and we reviewed for grammar and spelling. We also read chapter 6 in which the cygnets learned to fly and the family headed south to Montana. As a follow-up activity, we read about text to text, text to self, and text to world connections. Morgan then illustrated a text to self connection in which she drew about a time she was afraid but had success with something. In the book, Louis was afraid to fly, but then greatly enjoyed it. Morgan drew about the time she was hesitant to try, but did a front flip on the trampoline and landed it! We then wrote the targeted vocabulary words for these two chapters in her project journal. The words are: defective, serenely, resonant, buoyant, and frolic. In Latin, we reviewed her six flashcards by quizzing the English side and also the Latin side. These are tricky for Morgan, so we will continue to practice. We also reviewed the 12 constellations from the previous two lessons. This afternoon, Morgan participated in an online Lindamood Bell session. She began with an imaginary number line in which she performed subtraction and various exercises to move along the number line. She practiced flashcards for addition, subtraction, and multiplication. She looked at four different problems and found the amount that one of the problems “equals to” as requested by her teacher. She finger wrote problems that she missed on her desk to help get a picture of the problem. She enjoyed playing a game of multiplication war! Next, she practiced reading her targeted list of sight words. They wrapped up her session with Morgan reading Anne of Green Gables. She continues to work on fluency and decoding in her reading while discussing the text for comprehension.

Baylie continued to respond to questions on the Missouri Compromise. She read selected information on this subject and then wrote answers to essay type questions. For Science, Baylie worked on the scientific method. She did an experiment using gummy candies in which she had to form a hypothesis based on an experimental sample.

Macy and I spent our time together making shamrock art. First, Macy very neatly cut out a large shamrock. Then, using painters tape, we carefully taped the shamrock onto a large piece of white paper. Macy used a fuzzy pompom held by a clothespin to dip into green watercolor paint. She made pompom dots all around the paper focusing directly around the taped on shamrock. Once dry, she carefully peeled off the cutout shamrock to reveal a shamrock silhouette. We spent the remainder of our time listening and dancing to I'm a little Leprechaun.

Macy did a journal writing exercise where she drew a picture in her journal and wrote three sentences on her picture. We read the story "Aladdin" together and she drew a picture for the beginning, middle, and end of the story and wrote a sentence about what happened in each part. She also completed two math pages on one digit addition and subtraction in her math book.

JOURNAL WRITING: When I began working with Macy, at 9:15, she had started a journal entry about her weekend. She completed her entry and read it to me. READING: Macy summarized the first three chapters of, "Henry and Mudge and the Forever Sea." There was one chapter left, "Good-bye Crab." Macy read this aloud. She then orally summarized this chapter. Comprehension questions included a discussion of characters, setting, plot, and problem/how it was solved. Macy answered higher order questions, such as, "Why is this chapter called Forever Sea?" SCIENCE: Macy and I took a walk in the garden. She showed me the sunflowers she planted. She also showed me all the plants that another student has been growing...green beans, carrots, sweet corn, broccoli, eggplant, and peppermint. We discussed that plants need soil, sun, water/rain, and air to grow. BIBLE: Macy memorized the Bible verse, "How much better to get wisdom than gold." She then printed the verse on blank white paper, using a black crayon. Macy then painted over this using watercolors. Macy used an ipad and we watched a "Super Book" Bible story called, "In the Beginning." The story was about obeying/not obeying and the consequences of each . PHONICS: Macy completed pages in her workbook. PAGE 180: Choose the correct "special sound" to complete the word. Each word had a picture with it. "Special Sounds:" tr, cl, st, sh, br, dr PAGE 181: Match the picture to the "special sound" you hear in its name. "Special Sounds:" sh, ch, thr, th, sl, sp, squ, sw, gl, bl, pl, fl PAGE 182: *Write the word that completes the sentence...focus on sl...pl...gr *Circle the "special sounds" in given words. Mark the vowels "short" or "long." Read the words. SOCIAL STUDIES/WRITING: Macy and I had a wonderful conversation about "freedom." We viewed a few short videos, for children on this topic. Macy then wrote a short story about what freedom means to her.

For the Science lesson, Baylie completed a vocabulary review on matter. She also read an article about the Hindenburg. After reading this article, Baylie discussed the pros and cons of hydrogen as a fuel source for cars. The History lesson was a continuation of The Civil War. Baylie read the Gettysburg Address. She completed the reading from the textbook and answered questions about what she had read.