We didn't get started until 10:00a.m. again due to the bike ride. Pooh suggested we do that in the afternoon. I just don't like to because of the heat. And, we've had a monsoonal air mass over the state, so that often means afternoon rain showers. We did a story from Prudence and the Millers and then the Bible time. That was fun, discussing what "the fear of the Lord" means and what "wisdom" means. Since I had them there, we did Science next. They listened, and talked about seeing slugs and ants in the yard. But, when we got to narration, they basically forgot everything. Sigh. They'll get it. I have had them narrate before, but it's been the Miller stories, not science facts.
Today, Pooh went first for reading. When we got to the phonics blending part, he got really distracted by the cut corner - you know, where you cut out the vowels for the blending. He kept staring at the corner looking at how the first page only had one square cut out, the second two squares, and the third three squares. He wouldn't stop looking at it for some reason. So, I got out the Lauri lowercase letters and we used those instead, and he did pretty well with it. I think I'm going to have to go cut all those corners the same so he'll stop looking at them and analyzing them! Then Tigger did his reading time (I had pre-writing papers for them to do from Donna Young's site while I was working individually with them). He wanted to move the vowels around himself for the blending practice. I let him do it a little, but then I did it some, too.
After lunch we did Math. Tigger went first for math, and he did okay with it. I got out the Math-U-See blocks for solving the "what number plus one equals three" equation because it's easier to see the answer with those. This week we are covering patterns, so I got out the Lauri Fit-a-Shape toy and we used those. We did things like: big circle, medium circle, small circle, repeat. I would start a pattern, then Tigger would repeat it; then Tigger would do a pattern and I would repeat it. We only did that a few times, but since we did patterns last year and the year before with the Lauri toys, they're pretty familiar with it. Then it was Pooh's turn for math. He went through it fine, and didn't need the Math-U-See blocks. He loved making the patterns. After we did a few shape patterns, I still used the Fit-a-Shape toys, but we based the pattern on color instead of shape. That was a little trickier, but he got it.
I read two books to them for read aloud time: Goggles and A Letter to Amy, both by Ezra Keats. They liked those. (Then tonight, I read the first chapter of A Bear Named Paddington to them.) I think I'm going to save the read aloud time for bedtime story, because it just seems to add too much to the middle of our day. Again, I barely remembered the next scroll page to start. But, they worked and finished those rather reasonably. I need to work on remembering to do those. I decided to skip Spanish today, but plan on doing it tomorrow.
I've done some streamlining this evening for doing school tomorrow. If it helps, I tell you about it tomorrow. I also really want to try to remember to use a timer for each session tomorrow. Looking ahead, Bible is only working on memorizing the first half of the verse, so that ought not to take more than 5 minutes. Reading time (which includes handwriting) will probably be 15 to 20 minutes each. Math (the subject I've tried to streamline) will probably be 15 to 20 minutes each. I need to have them do their scroll pages - which takes them about 10 to 15 minutes, when you count the coloring and everything. Then we have a (hopefully) short activity, art lesson, and Spanish. Not sure how long the art lesson will take. Spanish is usually about 10 minutes. And I still need to figure out what to occupy them with when I work with them individually.
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