Halloween

Halloween week! What a fun and busy week. I had a couple crafts lined up for this week but Sean wasn't interested. So, we just enjoyed the week. We had a few Halloween books checked out from the library and then the Halloween festivities.

We carved pumpkins. Maddy got into it more than Sean. Sean told us "It's too yucky".






Poor Maddy dropped a slippery seed and spent a good 15 minutes trying to pick it up.


The finished products:


We had a Halloween party Friday night and then Sean got to wear his costume to dance on Saturday morning.


And we can't forget Trick-or-Treating!! This was the first year Sean actually got into it. Maddy took right to it. She went running, trying to drag me down the street.








This week's reading:
Boo! It's Halloween -Wendy Watson
Dinosaur dreams -Allan Ahlberg
The three little witches storybook -Georgie Adams

Phonics

There are many theories on learning to read. I will admit that at this point, I'm just going with my experiences and my gut feeling. Growing up, I wasn't taught phonics in school and therefore had a really hard time with new words and spelling. I still have problems to this day but I've become much better after years of tutoring. Mom, dad...I don't think I've ever said it: Thank you! I realize that not every word follows the rules of phonics and they will have to be memorized but I think learning phonics is the foundation of learning to read. You can only memorize so much.

So, that's where we're beginning. I am presenting letter sounds at the same time I'm presenting letter names. Just like with the letter names, he may not get it right away but he will get it and it will become second nature. Here's a game we like to play. It's a letter matching game. Since Sean is still in the beginnings of learning to identify letters, he has a guide (the letter line pieces). Eventually, we'll play without them. We use alphabet flash cards with the letters up. I ask him to pick a card. Then I ask him what letter and what sound. If he doesn't know or gets it wrong, I simply tell him and ask him to repeat. We then find the matching letter (upper case to lower case). Once matched, we repeat the letter name and sound and start over until they are all matched. He LOVES it. He made me smile today by picking up the "A" and saying the soft A sound. Later he picked up the lower case "e" and said the soft E sound without me even asking. There are still times he tells me that "D" says the soft A sound but there are also times he tells me a "F" is a "B". He'll get it eventually.



So, this is what we are doing at the moment. I will continue to change things up depending on how Sean responds to the methods and what I learn as I continue to read. I'm currently reading The Between the Lions Book for Parents : Everything You Need to Know to Help Your Child Learn to Read.

School Days: Harvest Time

Fall is in the air! This week we extended our prior lesson on autumn with a lesson on harvest time. It was perfect timing because we ended the week with Autumn Fest at the arboretum.

Sean's scarecrow:


And tractor:


Autumn Fest
The kids had fun at Autumn Fest but might enjoy it better next year. They had many crafts for kids to do, including making a scarecrow, but Sean wasn't interested. They really enjoyed the tractor and hay bale maze though. And as always, kids love to make their parents liars and make us scratch our heads in confusion. Shy guy Sean who didn't want to do crafts b/c of the other people around had no problems with Woodsy Owl (mascot type thing who's motto is “Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute”). He actually asked to meet him, walked up to him, said hi and gave him a high five.










*A little note; I'm going to start adding our week's reading list at the end of bloggings so I've gone back and edited past posts with the books I can remember.

This week's reading:
The Little Red Hen -Byron Barton
Strega Nona's Harvest -Tomie DePaola
The Scarecrow's Dance -Jane Yolen
Hello, Harvest Moon -Ralph J. Fletcher

School Days: Fire Safety

October 3-9 was Fire Prevention Week so that was our theme. We started this week with talking about what fire was and why it was dangerous. We did an experiment with a candle and water. Sean watched how the water put the fire out; like a fire fighter uses a hose to spray water on a fire. I tried to teach Sean stop drop and roll but he just laughed at me. We talked about what would happen if there was a fire in the house....smoke alarm, fire fighters... So I went to let him hear the smoke alarm. I pressed the button, nothing happened. Ooops. We got new batteries. Still nothing! Uh oh! Time to go shopping. We are now owners of brand new smoke alarm and carbon dioxide detector. And you better believe we'll check them often! We ended the week with a walk to the fire station a few blocks away. The bay doors were open so Sean got to see the trucks. There were a couple of fire fighters outside washing a truck but Sean didn't want to go say hi. Maybe next year.

This week's craft was making a fire with paint. I placed dabs of red, orange and yellow paint on the paper and Sean used a straw to blow the paint into shape.


This week's reading:
The Little Fire Engine -Lois Lenski
The Fire Station -Robert N Munsch


This past week was a no theme week. Sean just wanted to work with numbers and letters so that's what we did.

Follow Up Endo Appointment

Sean had his follow up endo appointment this morning. (If you don't know about the first appointment read this: first endo appointment ) Today's appointment was so much better. We saw Dr Gyuricsko this time. First of all, the man has bedside manners!! He had Sean smiling and laughing in no time. Sean even gave him a high five at the end. This is big! Our last visit ended with 2 screaming kids and 2 frustrated parents. Dr G also did a very good job explaining things instead of assuming I understood why. He explained the bone age scan that was done a few months ago. He disagreed with the radiologist...but also said that it's b/c the radiologist doesn't read these as much as they read xrays for fractures and such. Sean's bone age is between 2 years 8 months and 3 years. Right on track. Dr G also mention how it's really not easy to pick up on things on the bone age scan at this age. At this age, there are still some bones in the wrist that haven't formed. It's more reliable at 5 years. So, if he's still having growth issues at 5 years old, they'll reorder the bone age.

As things would have it, Sean has had a big growth spurt. In the last 3 months he has grown 4 lbs and 1 1/4 in! That's the most he's ever grown! He's almost at the 5th percentile! The doctor is speculating that he may be trying to catch up because in the last 3 months he has grown faster than normal kids grow. On the growth rate chart, he's at the 90% mark for the past 3 months. This is a wonderful sign. Because he has no other problems right now and he has had this growth spurt, Dr G is not ordering any more tests for now. We are going to wait and see. We go back in 6 months.

Next week Sean has a follow up appointment with the G.I.

School Days: Week 4: Autumn

This we continued working on the letters A,B and C. Our theme was Autumn. Unfortunately, it rained all week so we couldn't do as much outside as I had hoped. We did manage to get out and collect leaves for leaf rubbings. We may revisit this theme a little b/c it's just now getting cool and the leaves aren't really changing colors yet.

Leaf rubbing:


Sean's art work this week. He loved making the hand print autumn tree.


He also loves his abacus. Right now we're just using it to count with.


This week's reading:
By the Light of the Harvest Moon -Harriet Ziefert
Fall is Not Easy -Marty Kelley
Fall -Ron Hirschi