the golden amulet

Golden Tree of the deep dark wood,

Tall and true and treasured,

Guide my love along the trail

O'er trials and tears beyond measure.

-from "The Golden Amulet", an Indian Folk Tale (adapted by Enki Education)

It's great to be back in the swing of another Language Arts block! I was pretty ambitious with the choice for our first story, "The Golden Amulet", as it was longer than the stories we read during the first block. But the kids did great with recall the next day, both of them remembering lots of details, so I guess they are ready for longer tales! This first drawing is J's rendition of our story drawing, showing the lost wife in the reflection of the golden tree (as happened in the Emperor's dream). The letter "T" is hidden in the drawing (the shape of the golden tree), and the kids had no probably seeing it right off the bat the next day. (Note that the word "Golden" in J's title is encased within the golden branch of the golden tree. Clever boy.)

Zoo Boy's drawing. He's back to asking for a lot of help, although he wasn't pleased with the results. He burst into tears and said he didn't want his tree to look the same as mine. I explained that it needed to look similar, as it was a led-drawing, and reminded him that we were going to look for a letter the next day, and if his drawing was wildly different than mine, he wouldn't find the letter in his. That soothed him somewhat, although not enough to actually draw the bride's reflection in the tree. He did, however, say that when HE pictured the golden tree in his mind, there was a waterfall. We all liked that idea so much that we each incorporated a waterfall into our drawings (although Zoo Boy was quick to point out that he didn't picture it in the location that I drew it on mine -- he did draw his own on his, just where he wanted it). However, when it came time to put titles on our drawings, Zoo Boy wanted nothing to do with writing and clearly requested that I write it for him, which I did.

He seems to be on a writing strike in general. Given that he's a bit young still for 1st grade, I'm not worried about it. We've taken a couple week break from handwriting practice (couldn't have come at a better time for him!), and I'm just letting him do his own thing. As you can see from his letter Ts (bottom), he's not taking his attempts at writing very seriously at this point. My approach to any of this sort of thing, as Enki recommends, is just to make note of it and continue to observe. I highly suspect that next year, when this sort of work is appropriate for the age he'll be, will find him more attentive to his work.



As you can probably guess, as usual, Zoo Boy chose not to participate in the writing of the verse. However, J went to town. He was very attentive to leaving enough space between words initially, but that deteriorated as he got more tired further along in the verse. Also of note, for the first time, instead of crossing out mistakes and following them with a corrected version, he wrote over the mistake letter with a darker correct letter. Interesting!

Here's the drawing I did which they followed along with to create their own drawings.