Week 2 Language Arts - All cracked up

We finished another week of LA with a central theme about eggs. Our maine story took place on the Misty Mountain where Denver Dog and Gabby Goose argued about nothing. In the middle of the argument, Gabby's Egg rolled out of the nest and down the mountain and landed in Randy Rabbit's hole. Of course the story I told to ds was a lot more entertaining and fun. He always enjoys animal sounds. Here are some of the photos:

This weeks we focused on m, d, g, e and r.

Here is ds's m and d words.

Of course an e drawing by ds.

I've read that a few people were having trouble teaching ds's to knit. I knew that with all of our issues that my ds would react the same way to me teaching him to knit. So I convince dh to teach him knots. I am hoping that once he has more confidence in his hands, ds will take to knitting easier. He learns 1/week and practices it on 4 different things/day (rubber bands, demin, string, ribbon, plastic just to name a few).

Our favorite books from this week are Silly Goose by Marni McGee and An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Aston. I am soo going to go broke from a book addiction.

We tried, but didn't work

One of things that we tried but eventually had to drop was Kumon. I love the philosophy and our center's teacher was wonderful with ds. BUT the work was too demanding, requiring a lot of attention nor matter how we divided it up. After a year we decided that the fighting wasn't worth it and discontinued it. I told dh that I could do something similar to Kumon that ds would enjoy more. So now we do "homework". In a simple composition book, I write down a few math problems and some type of language arts activity. He definitely approaches it more positively than he ever did Kumon, especially when the "homework" is more of a game than work. The book I love to use games from is Games for Learning by Peggy Kaye. Not only does it cover a wide range of issues to address by using games and but also tells you which grade you can use the game/activity for (K-3). I might revisit Kumon once ds is older.

Beautiful books; great for form drawing and language arts

I just wanted to share a few books that we read last week:

Ginkgo and Moon by Lisa Mertins

The Egg Tree by Katherine Mihous

Verdi by Janell Cannon

Best Little Wingman by Janet Allen

For LA the first 3 did really well when discussing trees for the letter T. I am so in love with Ginkgo and Moon that I want one for our own library. It would also be useful for seasonal discussions. The Egg Tree was perfect in preparing for Easter and Verdi did a great job of integrating S and T for our language arts section. Check them out of your library.

Language Arts Block

Grade 1

This is one of the two places I deviate from most waldorfinspired homeschooling and it's works for us. I am using The Reading Lesson with a waldorf twist. I chose TRL because it made sense to me. Instead of teaching the letters in alphabetical order, this programs teaches by the most common letters in the English language and sigh words along with each lesson. I also read the Write Road to Reading right before the holidays, which has some more methodology that would help with learning how to read through writing. I first mixed up the TRL with a waldorf twist. Looking back now, I should of went a little heavier on the Waldorf. We went through 12 out of the 20 lessons when I decided to back down from the old method of learning and started from the beginning of our new way. I also wished I did more block lessons and laid heavy into the form drawing. Having sensory integration disorder, my ds really needed the more holistic way of learning. My biggest issue was that I didn't feel comfortable with the waldorf curriculum that I initially purchased. Then when we hit the brick wall after the holidays I looked into the christopherus website and curriculum. Which lead me to look at other waldorf homeschool blogs and realized that what was given was more of a frame. With a little work, elbow and brain grease, we could have fun learning at home that really tends to ds's need.

So we started from square one using a mixture of all three methods:

This week we reviewed the following letters: c o s a t with trees being our center theme. H

ere are a few photos of our week:

So I started the week with the above chalk drawing with a story about an apple tree, a cat, a snake and an octopus. Not only did we cover each sound, I manage to squeeze a little morality into the story. After the story, we drew step by step the chalkboard picture into our MLB on Monday.

After morning prayer and movement, we have our playdough time. I only covered forming the letters one day this week. After that, he was very creative in forming words without being prompted.

Here is a sample of how we worked through the letters. Our drawing have the lower case letters in it. Ds picked out four words for each letter and we practiced writing them on the chalkboard before writing them in the MLB.

On our last day, we only had to cover one letter and then we went into dictation which was writing bits of the story from our main story of the week. Of course using a little humor made the writing exercise a much happier experience. Look at that smile!

One more thing to mention on a sensory note: for our writing we use broken pieces of chalk and crayons to do our writing. This is a Writing Without Tears inspiration. ds usually holds writing utensils with a death grip. The broken pieces forces him to hold them with a tripod grip.

Block 1 Form Drawing week 2

Grade 1

We had a very good week which goes to show good planning and flexibility goes a long way. I based our week on a rain theme thinking that the weather would help with the inspiration in our form drawing. All of our readings definitely worked with our straight and curve line form drawings. Here is what it looked like:

Even dd got into the chalkboard drawing and poem. Success for both kids.

Here's our movement with help of twister scramble. I love these dots.

Here are the forms we worked on in this section.

Playdough is a must in our daily life.

Does his proud smile prove that we are having a good time? This was his favorite.

This week's learning has definitely rejuvenated my faith in waldorf inspired homeschooling and realized that I strayed away from that. I can't wait until next week. I mean look at my ds's smile.

Lent and this week's lessons

For the first Sunday of Lent, our family discussed during dinner what it means and what we are giving up for Lent. I am giving up my beloved red wine, my dh is not going to purchase anything from itunes, and my ds is giving up burger king and crumpling paper. We really don't go there often but at 7 yo I guess this is the best I can get. Now I got to work on what we are going to give.
As for our schedule this week, I have grand plans:
Our theme is rain and form drawing.
I am armed with one really good poem, a lesson plan from Learn to Move Move to Learn book, and a few stories; Noah ark, Winnie the Pooh; piglet is completely surrounded by water, Horton hatches an egg, and Songs of El Coqui.
Our schedule will hopefully follow something like this:
Monday: play dough w/ therapeutic listening, LtM MtL lesson plan, snack, Right start math, lunch, walk, (dd nap), read out loud, library when dd wakes up, painting w/ tl.
Tuesday: simon says, poem, play dough w/ tl, form drawing, walk, snack, Right start math, lunch, OT, read out loud
Wednesday: recycling & trash out, poem, Play dough w/ tl, form drawing, snack, indoor movement/game, ds goes to school for 1/2 day, read out loud
Thursday: mercury's dance, poem, play dough w/ tl, form drawing, snack, free play, right start math, lunch, walk, dd nap, read out loud, bird feeder project w/ tl
Friday: ds all day @ school
Maybe this might just work out.

Sensory Stuff

So I am starting to work on ds's diet. He eats a lot of different foods but am working on seeing if gluten has an affect on him. I didn't realize how expensive a gluten free diet is. So after testing some products, I decided to try the enzyme powder to add to his juice since I know that taking pills would mean a crazy fight. We just started this digestive enzyme stuff so I'll post some results after a few weeks.
What else are we doing?
DS does the therapeutic listening 2 x's/day
works with playdough 1/2 hr
and many of our learning activities incorporate some sensory activity to help make transitions easier.