the search for the magic lake

Startled from sleep

By the singing sparrows,

Sumac smiled with joy.

A fine fan of feathers,

For far flight they gave her,

To save the sick young boy.

-from "The Search for the Magic Lake", a Incan Fairy Tale (adapted by Enki Education)

After making some adjustments in they way we're doing things this block, we started the week with "The Search for the Magic Lake," a Fairy Tale from the Inca Indians of Ecuador. I used a few of the kids' dollhouse dolls and a handful of silk scarves to illustrate some of the key moments in the story, and the kids did an amazing recall the following day. Here's J's story drawing. My two favorite things about it are the title (wrapped around the helpful sparrow), and Sumac, our heroine, using her magic fan to protect herself from the alligator who threatened to eat her.


Here's Zoo Boy's drawing. He asked me to help him with the background, and had me write the title (too many words for him to even want to attempt it), but the drawing itself is all his. If you haven't figured it out yet, the letter "S" is embedded in this drawing (the shape of the sparrow), and both boys immediately located it when we reviewed the drawing today.


The boys' letter "S"s. Zoo Boy was being silly again, and was obviously having difficulties forming the letter. Not too surprising, given that he still has trouble crossing his mid-lines, and the letter "S" is quite the exercise in mid-line crossing.

J's verse. What's interesting about this is that he started out NOT writing anything. He complained that he was tired. He spent a lot of time adjusting his pencil grip, counting the lines on his page, and dawdling around in general. I asked him what he was doing, and he told me "Thinking about things." I suggested that he COULD think about writing his verse. That got him started, but he was yawning a lot, and being silly in general. After the first two words, which took him about five minutes to write, he was gazing off into space and obviously poised to make no further progress at all. I startled him out of his daydream, by asking "What are you doing?" a bit sharply. He literally jumped and said "Oh, oh, I'll write my verse!" He then wrote the next word in all capital letters, but then settled down and did the best writing he's done since our first block. He wrote at a good clip, formed his letters well, and planned out where he was putting them, and seemed quite pleased with his work. It took him less time to write the entire verse than it did for him to write the little bit of the last verse he did. Interesting. We'll see what happens during our next story cycle.

My story picture. (You'll note my girl is NOT being eaten by the alligator!)

I was well pleased with how this story cycle went. I just wish we were starting another one this week so I could compare. However, given that J has dress rehearsals and chorus performances for the next several nights, keeping him out working hard well past his bedtime, I know better than to try to plan anything that requires concentration for the rest of this week. So it's another half-week for us. Next week we'll wrap up this block.