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Another fine example of the sorts of things I'm apt to find on my camera when I leave it lying around....

(click on the photo if you need to see a larger version)

ah -- vowels, part 1

Watch, my child, the path of heart,

For darkest night will soon depart.

Then sparkling sun will touch his wand,

As red and gold fill path and pond.

-from "The True Name of the King", Enki Education Grade 1 Academic Story

This week we are introducing the vowels, through telling and working with the story "The True Name of the King". There are five true vowel sounds, Ah, O, E, U, and A, and then there's I, which is a diphthong. The story tells a bit about each vowel sound, so we tell a piece of the story each day for a week, painting the story (and vowel sounds) the following day. We started yesterday with the first part of the story, where a poor girl begins a quest to discover the true name of the King, and today we painted "Ah".


The paintings are mostly to create a color theme for each vowel sound, which is repeated throughout the Language Arts work with the vowels over the next couple of grades. "Ah" is also referred to as the "Golden A", and the color theme is gold. So we painted a sunrise to reinforce the color, the sound, the verse, and the story.


Here's J's paintings, and how we set them up -- we painted the backgrounds on each first, then added the sun to the upper painting, and a large golden "ah" to the lower. These are "led paintings", meaning that the kids watch me paint with one color, then they paint the same thing, then I do the next color, etc, the same way we do our "led drawings". This is the first time I've done anything more than let them free-form with their paints prior to this (although I did give simple instructions with the "color dancers" type painting we last did). I wasn't sure how the kids would take to the led painting, but they seemed to really enjoy it.

Zoo Boy's paintings. After painting his "ah", he asked me WHY we were painting "ah". I did not answer him directly, but rather read the verse again (we read it during our recall of the story before we started painting). "There's a lot of "ah"s in that verse, " J noted. "Ah!" I exclaimed, and smiled. The boys giggled and ran off to play.

After letting them play for awhile, I gathered them back with our story time song, and we read the next part of the story, where the girl discovers that she did NOT have the correct name, and comes up with another guess. When I finished, Zoo Boy said "I don't think she's got the true name of the king, tomorrow she's going to be told that's not right again." The kids wandered down the hall discussing what the true name of the king might be.

So far this has been my favorite story to work with! I just love this light approach to the complicated vowels, and I like how the entire week is going to just weave a complete story by the end. It's very nourishing for both the kids and me!

week#12 (4th week of 3rd block)

This was another half week for us, due to J's chorus show on Friday and Saturday evenings (and a late dress rehearsal on Thursday) which messed up our rhythms fairly soundly at the end of the week. Fortunately, I now understand how my kids operate enough that I anticipated that and kept their schedules extra light this week. (Here J is practicing his songs while playing his keyboard as accompaniment -- he is definitely ready for some formal piano lessons if we can manage to find the time, money and a good teacher.)


Our curriculum story this week was "The Search for the Magic Lake." I used some simple props while telling the story, which resulted in much better comprehension on the part of both boys, so I will probably continue to do that sort of thing with future stories. We also started a new Adventure Circle this week to meet the kids' current needs better. Both kids had classes about animals preparing for the winter, and each had an opportunity to spend time with museum staff meeting some of the animals up close and personal. Here Zoo Boy checks out Priscilla the Chinchilla's tail. And the boys wrote their letters to Santa on Thursday morning in lieu of a formal morning lesson.

Here's the chorus's formal portrait from their dress rehearsal on Thursday evening. The show went off without a hitch on Friday and Saturday evenings, with J singing his chosen solo, Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

After Saturday's show, the chorus kids each received a gift for participating in the show. Here J checks out his haul (a Santa snow globe and a handful of Christmas type candies) with the help of Zoo Boy, while Mimi and I look on.

Needless to say, the boys were BOTH exhausted by Sunday, and hung around the house all day doing not much of anything. Which was a good choice, given that outside it looked like this: our first snowfall of the season (several weeks late, may I add, but I was pretty happy it held off until AFTER the show was complete, given that we drive a bit of a distance to get to rehearsals, etc). After I finshed up my work, we all snuggled in the bed to watch football for the last part of the afternoon and the evening. The kids had a blast cheering on our beloved Patriots to an exciting victory, and we all did our best to blow out Uncle Big J's ear when we called to celebrate with him!

I stepped things up for reading practice this week, giving Zoo Boy a level one chapter book (Busy Beavers, part of the Smithsonian Series), and J the first in the Magic Tree House series, Dinosaurs Before Dark, by Mary Pope Osborn. Both kids were thrilled to have more of a reading challenge, and both rose to the occasion.

Story Time books for this week were Winter Lullaby, by Barbara Seuling, illustrated by Greg Newbold; Long Night Moon, by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Mark Siegel; and Room for a Little One, A Christmas Tale, by Martin Waddell and Jason Cockcroft. And we continued to read about the adventures of Chester Cricket in The Cricket in Times Square, a chapter book that all four of us are enjoying immensely.

Our consonant block is done. This coming week introduces the vowels, and then we have one more week before our winter holiday break to do a little winter science work in preparation for our holiday celebrations.

J -- santa claus is coming to town

Ok, this is my first attempt to get a video posted to my blog, so we'll see how this goes -- me and the technology thing don't always get along. And besides that, this was taken on my stinky little camera, not a video camera of ANY sort, so the picture is over-exposed and the sound is pretty crappy. BUT, for those of you who were unable to make the show, here is J in his first public solo performance. I'll be happy I have this someday when he's famous!

the big show

After several months of preparation, this weekend was the youth chorus's big show. Here's our little man, J, during his solo, belting out "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" for all the world to hear. I took a video with my cheesy little camera, it remains to be seen if it's worth viewing or if I can manage to get it up here on the blog, but I'll fiddle around with it a bit tomorrow and see what can come of it. These really great photos are courtesy of my Dad, with a REAL camera.

The show was fantastic, and had everything a big production should:


Singing...










...dancing...










...drama...














...and a really big finish!!

The kids were talented, the scenery, lighting and sound were fantastic, and the director is just plain amazing.

Word has it there is a spring production as well, and you've got to bet we'll be all over THAT!

winter adaptations

The kids each had classes at the local children's museum this week with the awesome Ms. Sarah, where the topic was how animals adapt for snowy weather. Meanwhile, Mimi sent up this holiday card (our first of the year!), which illustrated the week's science theme nicely!








J in his class, "Migrators and Hibernators", where they played games about migration, hibernation, and getting ready for winter in general, as well as creating a snowy scene where active winter animals are camouflaged.



Zoo Boy played similar games in his class "Do Animals Wear Winter Coats?" In this photo, they are discovering how a layer of fat (in this case a glove on one hand) helps animals stay warmer (than their uncovered hand) when immersed in a bowl of water filled with ice. Just like how seals stay warm when swimming in icy arctic waters.


Here's both of the boys' snowy camouflage scene. J's in on top.













While each boy was in class, the other participated in a "Meet an Animal" program (Zoo Boy met a Chinchilla, while J met a Guinea Pig), and then both boys sat through one more program about a Ball Python, which they can be seen petting in this photo. They also got to spend a bunch of time playing at the museum with other kids, and Zoo Boy tagged along with the rockin' Ms. Rachel as she cleaned and fed the animal room inhabitants, as he often does when visiting the museum. He's lucky Ms. Rachel is so tolerant -- I'm pretty sure he slows her down to about half-pace when he's there asking questions and insisting on being involved. But hey, that's why she totally rocks!

Dear Santa,