Reading, Week 1

Day 1.
Introduced words for 1st 2 sentences.
Read each word .
Encouraged him to really look hard at each word.
Made new sentences with each word.
Found words in the stack " Can you find the word hen?" , etc.
Shuffled cards and found them again.
Made silly sentences with the words and read them " The little seed found a red hen.", etc
( mistake I made. I turned over the words he could already read before practicing. He got stressed that I was only leaving the "hard" words.)
Time spent 15 min.

Day 2.
Reviewed words.
Made new words. found -sound-mound, etc. Did not do every possibility.
more sentences using all word combinations possible.
I say a word and he spells it with letter cards. ( he really enjoyed doing this.)
Time spent 15 min.

Day 3
Reviewed words.
Introduced new words for next 2 pages of story.
Made new sentences and read them.
( I had a hard time getting him to do this lesson today-he did not want to do reading first .I introduced too many new words.)
Time spent 20 min. Had to redirect him several times to work.

Day 4
Reviewed words.
Made lots of sentences and read them.
Played a few games with the words that he wasn't reading easily. Pick a card if you read the word you keep it, etc. Concentration, etc.
He read the first 2 pages of the story and I read the next 2 pages of the story.
( I did reading after all his other subjects which did work better. He liked the games. It was easier for him to read the words in the story than randomly)
Time spent 15 min.

Lessons I learned.
Don't get rid of cards that he can read easily too quickly.
Better to introduce fewer words.
Non competitive games. He really enjoys these and really looks hard at each to word to make sure he remembers it.

Next Week
Continue working on the words we have until he knows them without hesitation.
Spelling with letter cards words + words we can make, found- mound, etc.
Possibly introduce the rest of the words in the story.
Keep reading as the last subject of the day.

Sample narration, week 1.

Sam's very first narration....

How the Whale Got His Throat from Just So Stories
narration by Sam

A whale met a man and ate him. The man danced and danced in the whale and made the whale hiccough. The man used his suspenders and his raft and made the whale a throat. Now the whale has a throat and can only eat little fish.

Preschooler at work

Friendship bracelets made with pipecleaners and ponybeads have always been a favorite activity with my preschool age kids. My oldest daughter used to make matching ones for all her dolls and horses. Today was Charlotte's first time working on this project and she was content to practice putting on the beads and pulling them off but we did get one finished project.

Birthday Boy!

Charlotte's Bad Grade

Sam gets out the attribute blocks and calls for his sister, " Charlotte, it is time for Shape School . Please come to the table."

Charlotte says, " OK."

Sam pulls out a block and says, " Charlotte, say blue circle."

Charlotte says, " No."

Sam pulls out another block and says, " OK, Charlotte, then say yellow triangle."

Charlotte says, " No."

Sam sighs heavily, pulls out another block and say, " Can you say red rectangle?"

Charlotte giggles and says, "No." She leaves to play kitchen.

Sam gets a piece of paper and a pencil. He writes a giant F on it and gives it to Charlotte and says, " You get a F in Shape School for today."

A CM Reading program ?- Early planning

I'm at a real crossroads with reading instruction. I spent some time yesterday reviewing LLATL -blue which I intended to use and decided against it.....far too much busy work and the reading selection are less than stellar. 100 Ez lesson isn't a good fit for Sam and LLATL isn't a good fit for me and I absolutely refuse to purchase another reading/phonics program so I'm going to create my own with Charlotte Mason suggestions.

I found my old, ancient copy of A Home Start in Reading by Ruth Beechick ( which was my first homeschooling purchase back in 1994!) and highlighted everything that Sam knows and can blend with ease. This may have been the least useful thing I have done because nowhere in Charlotte's writing have I yet to find a specific list of phonics rules to teach.

I read through Home Education pgs. 199-222 highlighting as I read.

"Accustom him from the first to shut his eyes and spell the word he has made. This is important. Reading is not spelling, nor is it necessary to spell in order to read well; but the good speller is the child whose eye is quick enough to take in the letters which compose it, in the act of reading off a word, and this is a habit to be acquired from the first: accustom him to see the letters in the word, and he will do without effort." Home Education pg. 204

"The teacher must be content to proceed very slowly, securing the ground under her feet as she goes." pg. 205

"But here is another advantage of slow and steady progress––the saying of each word receives due attention, and the child is trained in the habit of careful enunciation. "pg. 208

I do not have a specific day-to-day plan but instead a day-to-day goal. I will train Sam to "see the word". I will proceed at Sam's pace. I will make sure he is trained in the habit of careful enunciation of the words in our reading lessons.

"Definitely, what is it we propose in teaching a child to read? (a) that he shall know at sight, say, some thousand words; (b) That he shall be able to build up new words with the elements of these. Let him learn ten new words a day, and in twenty weeks he will be to some extent able to read, without any question as to the number of letters in a word. For the second, and less important, part of our task, the child must know the sounds of the letters, and acquire power to throw given sounds into new combinations. "pg 216-217

It will take some time to adjust my thinking from phonics rules to Charlotte's rules. I will probably use my little phonics chart to see progress in our reading program for Sam. Perhaps this will not be a necessary step the second time around with our next reader.

I've chosen Treadwell's The Primer as our text. The first selection is "The Little Red Hen" which will give us 30 words.... some of which Sam already knows by sight or has built with our letter cards. I will continue to use the letter cards that I have laminated from LLATL-blue and use index cards to make our word cards.

I will try to keep each day fresh and different. We will build our words with letter cards, build new words( sound, pound, etc) , make new sentences leaving blanks for words we don't know ( to pique interest per CM),recreate the actual text with our word cards, etc. As I reread CM's writing and the PR articles I will surely come up with new ideas and refine the ones I already have.

I welcome any comment or suggestion as I begin this new direction in our reading program!

Outdoor Hour Challenge #15

We were traveling the Friday that we would have normally done the Outdoor Hour Challenge #15. Nature study helps the miles go by! We id'd our trees that we saw on the way.....Loblolly pines and Southern Magnolia were the ones we saw the most frequently. We counted Egrets that we saw under the Basin Bridge portion of 1-10....37. We realized that yellow Daylillies are a favorite at roadside parks because they were at every single one that we stopped at from Texas to Florida.

Ahh vacation! We spent the week at "The Beach House" on Amelia Island. This is the second time we have stayed at this particular house and I suspect we will head back sometime in the future because we have not explored every nook and cranny of the island. Fabulous place to visit for nature lovers. We of course spent alot of time at the beach. Charlotte's favorite activity was playing in the tide pools. Sam loved it all.....riding wave, flying kits, building sand castles, crawling aroung the sand like a crab from Burgess' Seashore book that we have been reading.

We also spent alot of time exploring Fort Clinch State Park. Florida has the BEST state parks and we usually spend quite a bit of time in them every time we visit. Fort Clinch has a fort that Sam loved, a beach area, a river area, a play ground and hiking trails with real Florida alligators. Yes we did see one but didn't stay to take a picture!



What are these kids looking at?


Red Ear Sliders. We were warned that the was an aligator that has been spotted in this water so we stayed high up on the bridge on today's visit.

Once back home we went to our butterfly garden in hopes to draw some flowers. Sam was absolutely not interested in drawing flowers. I will use the resources that Barb-Harmony Art Mom suggested in Outdoor Hour Challenge #15 to continue drawing in my journal and perhaps Sam will join me.

The butterfly garden is in full-bloom. The flowers are taller than Charlotte. You can barely see Sam in this picture but he is there standing tall trying to see me over the blooms.