Days 4&5

Day 4 - Our classroom pocket calendar arrived in the mail, so a good part of the morning was spent punching out all the number cards and weather cards and holiday cards and month cards...I am going to make a Good Morning book in which Joey writes the date and graphs the weather, but for now we are just enjoying the calendar by counting up to the current day's date, and saying the days of the week together with Katie.

Joey and I completed the short o vowel sound lesson. Owen by Kevin Henkes was our read aloud.

Day 5 - We had a good review of Ephesians 4:32, our verse for the week. Joey and I completed the short vowel sound of u lesson and our read-aloud was I like Bugs by Margaret Wise Brown, paying attention to the short u sound in the word bug. At the end of the short u lesson, I put the 5 vowel cards on the table, and told Joey to pick up the card that corresponded to the short vowel sound I would say. He got to keep the card if he chose correctly. He thought this was great fun, and was pleased to have more cards than me at the end of each round. The game confirmed that he struggles with differentiating between the e and i sounds, which is typical.

It was a good first week, I suppose. We got through all the short vowel sounds lessons, but next week will be all review as Joey doesn't have these mastered yet. My plan is to move slowly through all the consonant sounds because I think Joey needs the time to master before moving forward. For both our sakes, I am trying to remove frustration in his reading instruction and attempts, and allow the reading to come when the connections have been made in his mind, not because I think he should be able to do this by now. I will adjust as necessary, but right now I think slow and steady will be our plan of attack.