Christopher started the lesson by reciting the sounds and letters in Quick Drill in Reverse. He then used the magnetic tiles to create the words with vowel consonant e mixed with closed vowel sounds. Christopher successfully spelled wildlife, vampire, and nonsense words: conbrile, drenvile, and transdope.Christopher will do the dictation portion of the lesson on Wednesday.

Christopher began the lesson by reading the nonsense word "laxtile." We discussed how these words have one closed vowel syllable and one vowel consonant e syllable. Christopher is getting good at reading these words, even if they are nonsense. We then did research on two vocabulary words. A notebook entry was made in the dictionary for bonfire, and membrane. We discussed the idea that the first bonfires were really bone fires. We discussed the concept of a plague and Christopher was curious about learning about the bubonic plague caused by infection brought about by a flea. We discussed that people enjoy a bonfire at night to sit outside and sing songs. The concept of membrane was introduced by discussing a cell membrane as a lining or barrier that helps keep water in a cell. Each of these words had a definition entry, a sentence, and an illustration made by Christopher entered into the notebook. The lesson continued with Christopher practicing two sight words: however and whenever. I worked with Christopher on the right way to make a "w." He is still having letter formation problems with the letters "p" and "w." Christopher played a game he devised using a spinner to read a large stack of words from Book 4.2. Christopher was asked to read a nonsense word list for charting. He got 13/15, missing two words: inbefe and vilmite. We went over these words after the testing to review. Christopher then read ten sentences with good phrasing. He was proud of his reading today and read with a confident voice. We completed the lesson by reading a short passage from Because of Winn Dixie.

Christopher started his lesson by completing the analysis of his dictation. He did a great job scooping the two syllable words into sentences. He was able to correctly mark up the closed vowel syllables and the vowel-consonant-e syllables. Christopher spelled all his sight words correctly. He worked on the analysis of the sentences. Today Christopher had every sentence starting with a capital letter. This was very good progress. Christopher circled all the sight words, he marked up all the words with one and two syllables, and he circled the punctuation. At the end of each sentence analysis, Christopher read the sentence back to me and then I had him spell the words: escape, springtime, and basement from memory. He did very well. Christopher read the story Limestone Cave. He read all the sight words first, correctly. He then read a paragraph silently. The story is about three children who decide to explore a cave. At first, when I asked Christopher what the children were planning to do, he told me they were going to play tag. We reread the first paragraphs and discovered that the children were going to explore a cave. Christopher did not have much background in the look inside a cave. We spent some time on background information by going to web sites with pictures of the insides of different caves. i explained to Christopher about the limestone formation of stalagmites and stalagtites in the cave. Christopher continued reading the story. He needed rereading to discover that the children took a flashlight to help them go through the cave. I asked Christopher why it says that they brought a rope for safety. He told me that they had to climb in the cave. We discussed the perils of falling into a small crevice in a cave. We talked about how to make a rescue in a cave. Finally, the story centered around the fact that there were bats in the cave. Christopher needed a quick background about bats. He had seen them on tv but he had never seen them in a zoo. We talked about their red eyes, how they look like birds, but they have fur instead of feathers. We talked about them being very ancient animals perhaps related to dinosaurs. Christopher seemed more interested after spending time exploring ideas. He worked on the consonants, vowels, and welded sounds for 4.2. We reviewed the guide words for the long vowel sounds of a, e, i, o, and u. Christopher read the review words: cute, shin, and dime from the magnetic tiles. He did not know what the shin bone meant. We looked up a diagram of a shin bone and added a definition and sentence to Christopher's dictionary. Christopher then read five nonsense words from the magnetic tiles. On the word "plobbile" we had to stop and review the long and short vowel in this word. Christopher will play a game next time to review the nonsense words.

Christopher started his lesson by reviewing the long sounds of a,e,i,o, and u. He reviewed the vowel consonant e rule. Christopher practiced the sounds of consonants and digraphs: sh, g, z, wh, w, p, and qu. Christopher began his dictation. He wrote the sounds that were dictated. He wrote the real words for 4.2 and the nonsense words for 4.2. Christopher took a break to review sight words: because, cause, wherever, goes, going, and cause. He wrote these with colorful pens on the whiteboard. Then, we continued the test. Christopher got all the sight words correct. He wrote three sentences that were dictated successfully. With a little reminder, Christopher wrote the first word of the sentence with a capital letter. We worked on making the lower case letter "p" by starting it below the line so that the puff part of the "p" lands on the line. This is still not a habit, but maybe with more repetition, it will become a habit. Christopher began the analysis of the words with a red pen. He scooped two syllable words. He marked up two and three letter blends. He marked up the syllables that were closed and correctly marked up the words that had a vowel consonant e syllable. We will continue this on Wednesday.

Christopher started his lesson by reading the sentences on p. 44. He did a good job of phrasing either after the verb or before a prepositional phrase. Christopher then played Quick Drill in Reverse and learned to name the long vowel sounds by saying for example, o consonant e for the long "o" sound. Christopher found the sounds for sh, g, z, wh, w, p, and qu. He found the closed vowel sound exceptions: old, ost, ind. He found and pronounced the welded sounds: ing, ang, and am. Christopher used the magnetic tiles to spell the review words: plates, grapes, and waves. He did a good job of finding the base word and the suffix. He then used the magnetic tiles to make the words lifelong, manmade, pinhole, frustrate, and frostbite. Christopher recognized the compound words. He was able to show me where to divide the words into syllables. Next time we will do the dictation.

Christopher started the lesson by reading the word "athlete" from the magnetic tiles. He could see that the first part of the word has a closed vowel sound, and the second part of the word is a v-e construction. Christopher read the words reptile, admire, fireman and flagpole from the magnetic tiles. He then played a word game to practice a stack of 4.2 words. Christopher read the words stampede and exhale but did not know the meanings of these words. We did a notebook entry for each which included a definition, a sentence, and a diagram which Christopher drew. Christopher ended the class by taking the charting test. He scored 15/15. He is doing well with this new level of skill.

Christopher started his lesson by reviewing the vowel consonant e syllable type by reading the nonsense words: dafe and creve. He continued by reading the sentences on p. 14. Christopher used the vis-a-vis marker and did a good job of marking up the phrases, showing that he understands where the prepositional phrases are, and where to pause a little. In two instances, I had to stop him to show him how to keep an adjective and noun together and an adverb and adjective together, for example: the phrase quite long. Here the adverb quite modifies the adjective long to show to what extent. Christopher then played Quick Drill in Reverse. He was able to tell me all of the long vowel sounds and the short vowel sounds. Christopher correctly read and pointed to the consonants v, z, g, r, and p. We discussed one permissible way to make a lower case "p" by starting from the bottom the way Christopher prefers to do, but starting below the line so that the letter is lower case and not a capital letter in the middle of a word. Christopher practiced the welded sounds ost, ind, olt, ing, all, and ank. He built words using the tiles to practice before the dictation test. He built: rented, detected, and publishing. Christopher built the words glaze, drone, blade, bathe, and spike. On the word "bathe" we discussed the voiced sound of the "th" digraph. Christopher practiced sight words using the colorful markers on the whiteboard. He wrote: your, her, does, for and we. The word "does" gave Christopher a little trouble, but he paid close attention to it and tried to learn to spell it correctly. Christopher then took his dictation test. He did a great job on every read word and nonsense word. He spelled all the sight words correctly. Christopher is beginning to remember to make a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence. He finds it very difficult to incorporate this habit. Christopher still needs reminders to put a period at the end of a sentence. Christopher did the entire analysis of the page after the test. He was able to successfully mark up the v-e words. He marked up closed vowel sounds and boxed welded sounds correctly. Christopher did a good job.

Christopher is home sick today.

Christopher is out sick today.

Christopher was absent due to illness today.