Piero was given the present and past tense of thirty-five verbs. He wrote sentences for each of the verbs. We discussed mistakes as they arose. He combined some of the verbs to write a short story.

Piero began the session with conversational writing where we ask each other questions and I can explain mistakes as we go on. We then shifted to restaurant vocabulary and writing ordering conversation in a restaurant. Cabo then wrote a short story using vocabulary for body parts. He wrote a funny story about a boy who had fallen down.

As in our usual fashion, we started with our review of our reading of The Lemonade War from yesterday. Piero correctly answered 11 of 14 questions in follow up of our reading of the beginning of chapter 6. He was stumped on a few of the questions and we worked through them together. We then continued reading the end of chapter 6. We made predictions as we read and we are working to figure out why Evan is so unhappy with Jessie! For a fun phonics and vocabulary activity, we completed two, ten-step word ladders. With a word ladder, we start with a short word (such as: base) and then with descriptive clues and directives to change, add, and/or replace one or two letters, we work our way up by creating new words to fit the descriptions. One of our word ladders started with “base” and moved through different words such as bass, mist, and mast to then end up at ball! This is a fun way to analyze phonics and how letters are used together as well as increase vocabulary. For example, today, Piero learned bass, mist, mast, seam, and that sweat means perspiration. Oral language directed activities: We enjoyed talking about the Marvel character Black Panther, as Piero gave me information to put on our slide. Next, we laughed at funny pictures of penguins watching t.v. as well as a koala sleeping in an awkward position on the tree. Piero gave me captions, which we worked to expand together. We then worked on strong articulation of the English “j” sound in the initial and medial position of words (such as joke, journey, and project). Piero read the word and then used it in a sentence working on articulation as well as stretching his sentence with proper form. Finally, we enjoyed our game of Would you Rather. I learned that Piero would rather sail a boat than go hang gliding because he likes to go fishing and be out on the ocean. Piero has also been tasked with just “telling me something new or something about his day” when we start our class. For now, he is needing a lot of modeling and prompting. We will be working to expand his open dialogue skills.

We kicked off our session today with the review of chapter 5 from our reading of The Lemonade War. Using a word bank, Piero correctly filled in the blank for our summary on 10/12 items. We discussed the areas on which he was unsure. Next, we read the first half of chapter 6. We reviewed vocabulary such as “showoff” and “miser”. We read about the struggles the character Jessie has experienced with mean girls in her life. We also completed another reading exercise with a non-fiction selection on RAZ Kids, with “Get Moving! All About Muscles”. This was a long and involved read which we completed through shared reading. We discussed pronunciation of “fibers” and “muscles”. We worked through the follow-up comprehension quiz together to work through some of the tricky concepts. Oral language directed activity: Today we played a game of Jeopardy! Piero was presented with 4 categories with “dollar” amounts ranging from $100 to $500. He had to verbally select his category, the amount, and then respond to the question once it was presented. He did a nice job, accurately responding to 17/20 questions. The questions were a review of some of the material we have covered in our time together so far (prefixes re- and un-, pronouns, fact/opinion, and plural or possessive).

Piero began the session by writing conversational English in relation to a picture of a boy eating a huge chocolate bar. Upon completion, we reviewed the past tense of numerous verbs he has been learning. He wrote sentences for the past tense of these verbs. He then was given pictures of birds native to the Galapagos and I wrote under the images asking him questions about the birds which he responded to in writing.

This afternoon we began with our summary of The Lemonade War. We worked through a review of the end of chapter 4. Piero did a nice job filling in the missing information, scoring 10/12. This provides us a nice way to recall and analyze what we are reading. Today we read chapter 5. There was a great deal of vocabulary and figurative language in this section. We discussed the meanings and usage of words such as showoff, irritated, miser, and charity. Additionally, we analyzed phrases such as “Evan boiled over” and “The words felt like disgusting spiders running out of his mouth”. We also inferred how Evan was feeling about the bet they were making and what was about to happen when Jessie’s lip was trembling while they were arguing. Next, we reviewed our vocabulary study of the prefixes re- and un-. Piero worked to fill-in-the blank of sentences using a word bank of re- and un- words. He scored 6/8 on this task. Additionally, we learned about pronouns and the male and female forms. We practiced producing sentences and replacing the subject noun with a subject pronoun. Oral language focused activities: We had fun with our interview questions today in which I learned why Piero would rather be a master at drawing instead of an amazing singer and also why he’d rather be a superhero instead of a wizard. We worked further with strong articulation of the soft g, “j” sound at the initial and final position of words. Piero used the word list to create sentences. This provided the opportunity for expanding vocabulary with words such as badge, courage, hedge, jog, and edge. Finally, we explored more open conversation with our Marvel project focusing on Ironman.

Piero wrote sentences using the past tense verb for thirty present tense verbs provided. I then presented him with a picture of a sad dog all alone at the beach. We discussed the picture and then he wrote a short story about the picture.

Today we began with a review of the beginning of The Lemonade War chapter 4. Piero answered fill-in-the blank sentences using a word bank to help summarize the events we’ve read thus far. We then finished reading chapter 4. We consistently reviewed events and discussed the vocabulary as we read including words such as crowd, embarrass, and figurative language like, “Jessie felt like a deflating balloon”. For vocabulary building, I introduced prefixes. We watched a Brain Pop Jr. learning video on the subject. Piero scored 7/10 on the follow up quizzes. We then read through a chart of words using the prefix un- and re-. We discussed how the prefix changes the meaning of the words. Piero read through both charts which show the addition of the prefix to the root word and the new word it formed. We then worked to create sentences with the words. Next, as a follow-up activity from last week, we worked through some adverbs that compare. We discussed when we use each one and Piero scored 10/13 on our follow up activity utilizing the correct form. Oral language directed activities: We continued our Marvel project in which we conversed about The Incredible Hulk. Piero shared information such as his real name and his powers. Additionally, we answered some fun Would You Rather questions in which Piero decided he would rather be two years younger than five years older (as would I). He also would rather have a suit of armor to pretend battle with his friends (instead of a having a horse)! Next, we discussed funny pictures. One picture showed two chipmunks hugging. Piero gave me a caption for the photo and then we discussed the reasons people might hug. Finally, we focused on the /dg/ sound at the beginning of words. We discussed that the letter “j” in Spanish would not sound as it does in English. We went through the forceful release of the tongue at the top of the mouth behind the teeth and jaw movement used to produce a strong /dg/ sound. We practiced this in some /dg/ initial words. In all of our conversation, a great deal of modeling is provided, and ways to stretch his responses are promoted.

Piero began the session with my writing questions and he answered them and then he wrote questions for me to answer. We then reviewed the past tense of verbs studied last week and I added new present and past tense verbs to the list. I gave Piero a list of words and we created synonyms for the words and then used them in a paragraph that he wrote. I then gave him scrambled sentences and he had to rewrite them to make sense using correct capitalization and punctuation. We completed the session with a lesson with pictures of things one would find in a restaurant and he had to match the vocabulary with the pictures and then use the correct restaurant words in provided sentences.

I began the session with Piero with conversational writing. We wrote back and forth asking and answering each other's questions. We then reviewed the thirty verbs (present and past tense) that he learned on Thursday. He wrote sentences for each of the past tense verbs. I then posted a picture of a little boy walking along to school. Piero then created and wrote a short story of what he thought the boy was doing and thinking.