Learning Notes::Wk 2::2010

Learning Our Faith:

• Actually started morning devotions again this week. We use Morning Prayer from the Lutheran Service Book and read through the Bible readings for next Sunday and sing one verse of whichever hymn I can manage to carry the tune on by myself. The Word is always efficacious but I sometimes wonder how much John gets from these things and this week was treated to several times when he signed to us about what was being read. We are still working on signing The Lord's Prayers, but it will come.
  
• We continued to learn the catechism by heart. The 6th is finally starting to stick, if he can't get 'commit' right he is sure to get 'adultery' right each time, somehow that figures.
  
• We read aloud The Promised Savior, The Children of Adam and Eve, The Flood, and Abraham's Faith in God from A Child's Garden of Bible Stories.

Learning to Read

• Phonics from Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading we added M, N, and P.
• Phonemic Awareness - we are reading Rhyming books and while working on the poem Twinkle Twinkle Little Star we are emphasizing the rhyming words.
• Dolch List - John is working on the green list and was able to actually read 11 words this week.
• Teaching Reading with Children's Books - we have been rereading Here Comes the Cat and John has been working on spelling out 'here', 'comes' and 'cat' with his magnetic letters. This week John was delighted to read Hug to me all by himself, this is the second book that he can read all the words (hug, mommy, Bobo) to without help and in contexts other than just the book. The first was Tall, also by Jez Asborough, and it has tall, small and fall, along with mommy and Bobo. Learning that words that are capitalized have to be fingerspelled is nearly as big of a deal as learning a new word, but he is handling it well.
  

Language Arts:

• We did the lessons 3 & 4 in First Language Lessons and John did great with all the new signs and the concepts, well there is plenty of time to work on them. This continued work on the new poem The Caterpillar and also specification of common and proper nouns. Again the hardest part of this was remembering the signs for 'common' and 'proper', this is going to take time for the mommy brain but I might finally understand it learning it at John's pace.
  
• John continues to enjoy doing a page in his Handwriting Without Tears workbook and also likes to trace a few words on lined paper. He is especially proud of these pages and loves to get them to show dad the moment he comes in the house.
  
• Poetry Memorization, we continue with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, BINGO, and have enjoyed adding The Caterpillar from John's grammar book.
  
• Reading Aloud Literature: Magic Tree House book Mummies in the Morning, continued Stuart Little, and continued reading poems from Favorite Poems Old and New along with other books that John enjoys picking from his shelves. We also started Aesop's Fables this week with the intention of reading 1 or 2 a day until we finish the book. We also started reading the Illustrated Children's Edition of Ben Hur. I actually tried to talk John out of this book once, but nothing doing, he was intent on us reading it to him.
  

Math:

• We are still working on counting and this week worked especially on 1 through 5 with a new game, a Toy Story 3 version of Yahtzee Jr., John loves it and it's one the adults like too.
  

Music

• This week we continued reading Bach by Wheeler and Deucher and listening to Bach's music.
  

Art

• In addition to trying the art test again, we played with thumbprint people together one day and John played with them off and on through the rest of the week.
  

Therapy At Home

• John worked on cutting some things with his scissors, things he was allowed to cut, and he continued to work on his walking. He also likes to play on his little trampoline and see how much stuff he can reach.