Liam and I read about his favorite characters, The Loud Family. He was able to read the text aloud and then summarize the key points of the text.

Liam was given the iPad, and we worked together to complete an animation where his character opened and shut her eyes. Liam and I moved on to make his character's mouth open with a smile.

Liam completed several activities using his vocabulary words for this unit of study demonstrating his knowledge and understanding of the material covered.

Liam completed his timed multiplication and division activities. He worked on several math activities demonstrating his knowledge and understanding of fractions.

This afternoon, Liam and I read the next chapter in "Sadako and the Thousand Cranes" We discussed the elements of an historical novel and also read a bit about the author of the book, Eleanor Coerr. We talked about her possible motivation and intentions for writing about Sadako. Liam stated that he thinks Sadako was brave. He was encouraged to compare character traits of Sadako to other main characters of shows or books he's watched or read, respectively. With supportive prompts, Liam was able to see similarities between Lincoln and Clyde from Sadako and Willy Wonka, from Charlie and the Chocolatre Factory, and Loudhouse.

I substituted for Liam's reading class. Liam read a passage titled "The Scavenger Hunt". This was a story of children working together to collect musical items that started with letters A-Z. We reviewed the vocabulary words "locate," "settle," "uncover," and "retrieved" in the text. We worked on word structure by counting syllables. We practiced identifying themes, the problem, and the climax. We wrote reflections on the content and on feelings that characters might have experienced.

Liam completed a reading comprehension article, 1.2 Force, on his Exploration Education site about Force. We discussed all vocabulary words and their definitions. We watched a BrainPOP video on gravity. Then we discussed in detail what gravity is and why it is important.

Today Liam was in a great mood and was ready to get to work after coming in from recess. For today's coding class, he worked online through Code.org. He used the puzzle coding method to code a super mario styled character that had to jump to avoid obstacles.

Liam completed timed math drills on multiplication and division facts. He finished the division problems he started working on last Tuesday. He is still tentative about the process, and looks to me for verification as to the procedures. I am confident the more he works on these types of division problems the more confident he will become.

We began our lesson reviewing examples of figurative language - specifically, similes and metaphors. The former was easier for Liam to understand as he was able to easily locate the words 'like' or 'as' in the examples we cited. Liam and I collaboratively worked on three activity sheets on which he was tasked with identifying similes and metaphors and to then use them in examples. While he was somewhat challenged with the latter, he demonstrated good understanding of similes and enjoyed completing a 'Figurative Language Maze;' he figured out the 'mystery simile' after following directives and correctly identifying all the examples of similes. We then went on to discuss the book, Sadako. We read the next chapter, Sadako's Secret, on which Liam was queried. He identified the main characters and when prompted, recalled the secret - hiding her dizzy spells from her parents. Liam had a lot of questions and excitedly said he'd like to make a film about her. I showed Liam the origami paper and reminded him that we will make a paper crane when we finish the story. He was excited to see that he got a copy of the book so that we now each have a copy to read together.