Friday, rainy Friday. A day of learning and flexing.
Frazer was to go on field trip to Renwood Farm in Charles City with Heather Jeffery for the day while I get a moment to myself and work with one of tutoring students. Ah, the weather. Heather called by 7:30 on my way to drop off the older boys to let me know that she thought the trip would be off but her crew was really hoping for a day with mine. Of course I felt a bit trapped -- preschool, tutoring, Porter with a friend coming home as well as seeing my alone time slip away and then I realized that Frazer could have been tutored. However, no point worrying. Sure. This part of school is tricky -- sticking ot schedule and being flexible but that is the same for a classroom teacher.
By 8am the trip was canceled and Heather was set to pick up Frazer at 11am in Chester to take him to Pocahantas State Park for fishing and water and rain play. William took Porter to school for the first time, and I was able to work with Frazer on his reading and math.1.75 hours -- not too bad.
He read aloud Henry and Mudge and the Big Sleepover. He read the first chapter with minimal support. Long vowels are not yet in his repetoire but he gets them sometimes as well as oo vowel twins. He is stumped by -ai and -ea but they have not been introduced. It sounds as if his fluency has increased. He has "preread"all these stories. He says hat he looks through the pictures first. I think he reads some. He has been leaning towards the Henry and Mudge variety although the level is about the same as Nate the Great. There are more pictures in H&M.
He did not want to do the drill deck today when given the option. He is allowed to not do that with me as that is something he does priamrily with Marmi. He did complete the Great Leaps but he was not very proficient today 30 words with five errors. He did not want to retry his work. I think the greatest problem is that he read like a sight word which is essence good but paying attention to the vowels is important.
With the cusinaire rods we worked on ways to make six. He independently figured out about -8 ways with me nudging him a bit. One equation he work tickled me 1red + 1white + 1 Green
2 + 1 + 3
I read Exploring Autumn to him -- at least two bits. One about the autumnal equinox which he remembered that we went to Riverside Outfitters last Friday night to celebrate and one piece about how the calendar days are related to the year and how we lose time. He listened to me read -- the material was fairly dry -- but he attended. He did get the connection between equi and equal halves of a cookie. He did not know how many hours in a day (his guess was 6). We looked at the analog classroom clock. He did not know that there were twelve hours in the cycle of the clock going around once. I told him the day started when we slept at midgnight or 12pm and when we ate lunch at 12, the day had already gone by half way. Then I talked about 12 + 12 = 24 and that there are 24 hours in one day. Half of our day is daylight and half darkness on the equinox and no darkness is longer than light as we are moving away from the sun.
I thought we would roll through some miquon (p. 2 book one). The page was dedicated to ways of making 5-- an activity he had just done. The equation 2+ ___ stumped him. He did not say 3. I repeated the directions but he continued in a fog. I wrote the equation 5-2 = and said that the answer was the number and the difference he was looking for. We then tried some slash marks as we moved onto another problem. He was still a bit clueless. Then the thirs probelm was 3 + __. When I mentioned that he switch addends (which I had only read about once in Mission Addition on Tuesday) I got the remaining answers correct except for the final one. The equaton was __+__+__+__+__. Even with slash marks, and my hand he was at a loss for the answer. Then I showed him the 6 white blocks he had done for ways to make 6. Then he seemed to get it. I am not sure if he is missing the connection to the different kinds of work he is doing or it is not totally cemented. I need to buy some more jello and have him do some of the basic computations in the jello.
Next all he needed to complete was the "Make Your Own" section. I was surprised to see him taking numbers and doubling them I gave him cusenair rods to use buthe seemed baffled ab=nd got out the eight rod and began working 8 + 8 to get 5. He asked me "What's 8 + 8?" at which point I suggested that he decide which number was great in number 8 or 5. I knew that 8>5 but did not seem to undertand that using eight was not an effectiv way of making 5. I asked if he was write subtraction equations. No answer. I got out the base ten blocks and he made two rows of ten individual blocks (total 20). He did not count to eight coreectly once I pointed that I gave him the 10 rod to see if he could manuveur things and he just starting guessing answers for 8 + 8. At that point I told him the answer by counting the rods with him -- 16. I then pushed everything aside and asked about why he was guessing. He gave me that vacant look. When I explained to him that in the one on one setting he needs to tell me what he understanding and what he is not. He seemed surprised that he could tell him that he did not understand this. I tried to stress that I cannot help him or teach him if he does not tell me that he is confused.
He had a great day with Miles, Zella and Heather. Out in the open, playing, fishing having fun. SO much fun that he did not even stop to take photos which surprised me. He is also really enjoying listening to Peter in Scarlett in the car. He is following along in the book some.
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