Last week B requested "water with ice" and was quite dismayed to learn we didn't have ice--until he discovered the pitcher of water in the fridge had frozen (gosh darn it, I swear I've turned it down several times now!). He decided that an ample supply of ice was just what he needed to make popsicles, and spent much of the day Thursday chopping away at the chunk of ice with a knife trying to break it up. When that failed he quickly gave me directions on exactly what ingredients he needed for his popsicles, the most important being strawberry juice. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find 100% strawberry juice? We settled on strawberry kiwi, and he directed the "cooking" process today. The cooperation was wonderful, the ability to stick with an activity and see it through to completion is excellent, and the direction giving was quite entertaining at times! I've been planning on introducing liquid watercolors, so we froze several colored "cubes" to explore tomorrow--we'll see what they come up with next! I'm hoping to read the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh to introduce the concept of primary & secondary colors.
Last week all of the children showed interest in writing, with the two older girls (K & N) requesting more formal "reading" lessons. Today I offered colored index cards & "grown up" markers and they quickly sat down at the table to 'work', with L joining them (still hooked on her "mountains"...will post more on that soon!).
I'm using a multifaceted approach to teaching reading, specifically because both K & N have a general undertanding of the letter/sound correlation and are able to identify and write many letters based on their sounds. I usually begin the year using the"whole word" approach as described in Doing Words by Katie Johnson & The Sun's Not Broken, A Cloud's Just in the Way: On Child Centered Teaching by Sydney Guerwitz--both books are available in the Parent Resource Library. These books encourage teaching children word that are of value to them, rather than words from a standardized list--one of K's requested words was "opera" (don't ask me why) while N was primarily interested in writing the names of her siblins.
Typically I would wait until mid-year to introduce phonics, but since K is in kindergarten (a willing 'victim' of academic push-down) she is already working on phonics in her other class & is eager for "reading lessons" in our school as well. N, of course, is interested in anything K is doing, so both are currently working on the "at" word family. They are able to sound out most of the words in this family & write them with ease, so I'm planning on introducing formal "phonics readers" later in the week. I use Scholastic Phonics Readers more for convienence than because I actually like their format, I have a more formalized program I use for teaching reading to older children but these 'easy' books do the job for short, quick lessons!
http://shop.scholastic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay_16622_-1_10001_10002
I was afraid B would not want to participate in this activity since handwriting is not his favorite thing in the world, and was debating on how much I wanted to push him in this area. Much to my surprise when I simply gave him his space he soon came over & joined us. B is working on proper letter formation with his name, we are starting with BIG letters and will move to smaller later--so BIG pieces of paper on the floor were a favorite today. A bodily/kinesthetic approach is important, particularly for ALL BOY boys--using large strokes with whole body involvement is much more effective in teaching letter formation than starting with two lines with dots in between. Who invented that type of paper anyway??? Obviously not a four year old! I kind of figure it's like expecting us to write in itty bitty letters that are difficult to read & even harder to form. Forcing a child to stay "in the lines" while writing is much like insisting they stay "in the lines" while coloring, it leads to frustration & a sense of failure rather than a curiosity and eagerness to explore further. Frankly, at this point I'm more concerned about they enjoying the process than writing a perfectly formed "B"!
We'll continue with our exploration of pumpkins this week! I'm also setting up an "exploration station" with several items for making "shakers", I'm kind of hoping the interest in music will pick up again--it died out with E. sick last week but we are hoping he will be back tomorrow!
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