This afternoon we worked through our summary of The Lemonade War chapter 10. Piero did a nice job, scoring 12/15. I provide supplemental and revised wording for support as needed. Today we read chapter 11 which focused on the concept of “total loss”. We also discussed vocabulary such as lid, tipped, and labeled. We reviewed the events of our reading, analyzed how Evan was feeling, and made predictions throughout. Next, we worked with some categorizing. Piero was presented with three different categories and two words to pull from a word bank to get each started. He was then to name as many more items as he could. This is a nice way to connect English words he knows. Additionally, we added one more prefix to our list, non-. Piero read through a word list using non- and then performed a fill-in-the blank activity to complete sentences using non- words. Lastly, we worked through Word Ladder (12). We discussed the phonics and vocabulary needed to support words such as tame, tale, toll, torn, and ton. Oral directed language activities: Today we discussed the character Rocket Raccoon in our Marvel project. We then had fun with some Would You Rather interview questions. Piero decided he would rather jump like a kangaroo instead of hold his breath like a whale, so that he could see other animals better. Finally, we worked more on Piero’s Revolution. He worked to add more information about how the humans get to the new planet. He read three sentences he had verbalized (which are almost identical) and he worked to create one fluid sentence.

This morning we began with a fun book by Brian P. Cleary entitled To Root, to Toot, to Parachute (All About Verbs). This text is quite colorful and used a myriad of verbs in a rhyming fashion. Each verb on the page is in a different color font and after reading each page, Piero would tell me which verb he didn’t know. We discussed the meanings of each and we found quite a few unfamiliar words! This included words such as holler, whine, scale, root, and descend. We will continue to incorporate these words into various activities to help with growth of Piero’s English vocabulary. Next, we completed some activities using the “to be” verb in which Piero worked to choose the correct word to complete the sentence and also identify if it was past or present. The challenge was then increased and Piero had to convert the sentence to past tense. Finally, we worked with captioning some funny animal pictures. For our two pictures, Piero produced adequate sentences. We then created a box filled with descriptive words that were applicable to our pictures. He then added adjectives in his sentence to increase the detail.

Today our language arts activities began with our summary of chapter 9 and the beginning of chapter 10 of The Lemonade War. This summary was a bit challenging for Piero. I gave him a lot of time to utilize the word bank to find his answers independently and I also provided alternative explanations for several of the sentences. We worked together on those in which he needed help. We then finished reading chapter 10. We made predictions and discussed the events as we read. After reading we reviewed several items for pronunciation and meaning such as faucet, evening, hesitation, pulverized, and plunged. Next, we completed our study of prefixes mis- and im-. Piero performed 12/12 on a fill-in-the blank activity using words with these prefixes in sentences with a word bank. Oral language directed activities: We had fun discussing the character Groot for our Marvel project. Next, we worked with categories today. Piero was provided with a few words to get started and then scored 7/9 on generating his own words for our lists. Finally, as promised, we spent some extra time on Piero’s Revolution today. We worked on completing his thoughts for chapter 1 about the misbehaving humans. We looked at the verbal representations of his sentences and talked about word use, flow, and content. We made revisions based on these items. We discussed ways to develop the next part of his story a little further.

We began with the end of chapter 8 summary for The Lemonade War. Piero did a nice job, accurately completing 15/18 fill in the blank items. We then read and discussed chapter 9 and the beginning of chapter 10. We are working on slowing down oral reading pace as at times Piero is running many words together. From our reading we worked with 9 words for pronunciation and vocabulary. This included words such as adjusted, puzzled, and pawing. I modeled use of the words in sentences and Piero made some of his own as well. Piero reads the English words very fluently, but assessment and analysis of the text reveals deficits in comprehension and at times, limited ability for him to retell the story or events in English. Next, we continued our study of prefixes by working with words using mis- and im-. We worked on pronunciation of impolite and impatient. Piero had a good grasp of these word lists. A word bank was provided for support. We also worked with some commonly confused English words such as accept/except, its/it’s, and affect/effect. Piero did well with the word combinations only showing difficulty with borrow and lend. Lastly, we worked with a six-step word ladder. We analyzed definitions and phonics to move up each rung. Words like lit, ill, and mill made this ladder a bit challenging. Oral language directed activities: We discussed the Marvel character Deadpool for our project. Piero shared some information about this character and we worked to record it clearly on our form. Finally, we continued on with Piero’s Revolution. Piero is crafting his story verbally and we are working to make it flow with proper English. When I type what he says, he can more readily identify his oral redundancies. I promised him that for tomorrow we’d make sure to have more time for this activity!

Piero wrote a short story from a given picture of children in a zoo. He was then given a list of forty adjectives and he categorized them and then used them in sentences. Piero was then given 10 sensory adjectives and he wrote a paragraph using the sensory adjectives.

Piero began the session with a review of prepositions in context. He wrote sentences using prepositions and answered questions from a picture that required the correct usage of prepositions. I then showed him an intriguing picture of a cat and a dog. I started the short story. We each took turns writing a sentence about the picture, as we developed the story. We concluded the session using -ing verbs in sentences.

Today we kicked off our session with our review of The Lemonade War, beginning of chapter 8. Piero scored a 15/19 of his fill-in-the blank summary. This one was particularly tricky with a lot of numbers involved. I was excited to see Piero recall some of the vocabulary we discussed yesterday related to Jessie’s fears related to: stare, ignore, and tease. We discussed the events of the story as we finished reading chapter 8 in which Jessie and Megan had 13 franchises of their lemonade business. From our reading today, I identified several words to address for pronunciation and meaning. These words included sneakers, fanning, shoving, and swoop. We discussed the meanings and we used them in sentences for proper pronunciation. We continued with our study of the prefixes pre-and dis-. Using a word bank, Piero correctly completed 9/12 fill-in-the blank sentences using the words. We then moved to our vocabulary building with some terms Piero did not know from Word Ladders 29 and 30. Piero scored 7/7 on completing a crossword puzzle with these words with support of a word bank. Finally, we continued our study of analogies from yesterday. Piero did a nice job scoring 6/9 and we worked through several analogies with more challenging concepts such as sawdust, shell (nut), and thumb. Oral language directed activities: Today we added the villain Thanos to our Marvel project. Piero gave me some information about this character and I provided modeling and cueing for details and reshaping of his verbalizations. For our Would You Rather, I learned that Piero would rather be able to see far away (vs. close up) and he’d rather be a fast runner instead of a fast swimmer because he likes to run more than swim. Finally, we expanded on “Piero’s Revolution” today. This is a story he has created about humans destroying their planet and living on planet Ovnis. He verbalized a paragraph about the planet to me while I typed to his dictation. We then went back and read some of his sentences as they had been spoken. He was able to identify errors particularly with fragments and repeated phrase and word use. We then began working line by line to clean up his statements. We will continue this project in our next session.

Today we kicked off our session with Piero’s homework! He immediately recalled that he was supposed to tell me three things about his weekend. He did a nice job telling me that he played at the park yesterday and had dinner at a restaurant. He told me about some of the foods that he ate. We then moved in to our literacy activities. Piero scored 14/15 on his summary of our reading of The Lemonade War from Friday. This fill-in-the blank activity reinforces vocabulary and figurative language as well as assesses comprehension and recall. He is provided with a word bank for support. We then read the first ½ of chapter 8 in which Jessie is evaluating different strategies for her lemonade stand, not knowing that Evan has already reached their sales goal. We discussed quite a bit of vocabulary in our reading including stare, tease, and ignore, which are some of Jessie’s fears next school year. We then added the prefixes pre- and dis- to our studies. We read through word lists using both and Piero identified the words by their meanings. Next, we worked together on a crossword puzzle to review missed items from our word ladders (27 and 28). This was a fun way to use the words with provided support from the structure of the crossword puzzle. Piero is still having difficulties recalling these (seam, mass, sweat, mist, seem, and mast) and we will continue to work with them in various ways. We had fun working with some analogies as well. This provides us the opportunity to think about how words are connected as well as reinforce thinking skills and conceptual understanding of English words. For example, some of our analogies were: duck is to waddle as frog is to ____, as well as skin is to humans as scales are to ____. Oral language directed activities: Today we focused on 8 words from our reading of the text. These are words that needed correction in pronunciation such as disguised, sliding, and basement. We reviewed the meanings of these words and then modeling was provided to help Piero use the words correctly in a sentence. Additionally, we had fun conversing through our caption the funny pictures, Would you Rather, and Marvel projects. We both decided we would rather have to walk sideways like a crab instead of having to walk on all fours! Finally, Piero shared some information with me about a planet he has invented called Ovnis (which means aliens in Spanish). We will be utilizing his creation to jump start further conversational activities. His homework tonight is to create a name for the monsters that live on his planet.

Piero was given a list of prepositions and then answered questions about a picture and its object placements using the correct prepositions. He then wrote sentences using the various prepositions. We then reviewed the past tense of verbs he studied last week. I then showed him a picture of a scary old house and he created a short story about the picture.

Our session today began with our review of The Lemonade War, end of chapter 6 summary. Piero correctly answered 12/15 fill-in-the blank statements for recall, comprehension, and analysis from our reading yesterday. We then read all of chapter 7. Today’s material lent itself more for predictions. We also discussed the actions and feelings of the characters for further understanding. We tied in some of the business concepts Jessie was using into how they were applied for the lemonade sales in this chapter. We finally learned why Evan was so upset with Jessie and used the evidence in the text to support our discussion. Piero was interested in working with our word ladders again today. This provides such a fun way to work with phonics, rhyming, and vocabulary. Today he got stumped on a number of ladder steps. Our first ladder went from the word “start” to “finish” in the ten steps, while our second ladder worked its way up from “fire” to “candle”. There were a number of words that Piero said he didn’t know in English, such as: cash, tile, hall, candle, and handle. We will reincorporate these words into a follow-up activity to reinforce their acquisition. Oral language directed activities: Piero did a terrific job with his “homework” from yesterday. When I opened our session, I asked him to tell me something new/about his day. He quickly replied, “Today it is sunny”. He did not require any modeling or prompting. We will continue to work towards increasing open dialogue. Finally, we enjoyed our Would you Rather interview. Piero is doing a very nice job working on the flow of his response in which he responds with his choice and “because….”. I model correct form of his production when indicated. Today he shared that he would rather see a circus performance than fireworks because he likes to watch all of the animals perform.