The Snake Prince

Our final story for our first Language Arts block of the year was "The Snake Prince", and Indian Fairy Tale from the Enki Education 1st Grade Fairy Tales collection. J's drawing shows the princess weeping by the lake as her Snake Prince swims away. In the background is, and I quote J here, "the far-away kingdom where the Princess grew up."

Zoo Boy's drawing of a similar scene -- the snake is in the lake -- but in his version, the princess is crying in the house of black stone that she had built for her by the lake so that she could be near the prince she mourns. I'm amazed at how far Zoo Boy has come with his drawings in just a month's time -- he repeatedly told me he was going to need help drawing the princess, and I kept saying, "Ok, when you need help let me know." Yet in the end, he wound up doing the entire drawing himself.

Even more amazing his how far his writing has come. He's still using all capitals, but he's working right along without complaint, is almost doing the entire verse himself, is forming all of the letters correctly, and has a pretty good pencil grip (which is a HUGE deal for him!). All in all, it's been a very successful start to our year!

My drawing, for comparison.

We're on to a math block next month. When we return to Language Arts, we'll be working with the "Word Families", which I'll explain further when we get to it. After the holidays, we'll be starting our Grade 2 materials, so this is pretty much the end of the 1st Grade Fairy Tales for us (although I will probably sprinkle in a few throughout our math blocks here and there as needed, because they are such a lovely fit for Zoo Boy right now). We've gotten SO much out of using the Fairy Tales, I feel very blessed to have come across this curriculum when I did so that my children could be nurtured by these quality stories.