Day 95

We've made huge strides in reading over the past month. In September he couldn't identify the entire alphabet, he now recognizes many sight words and can sound out consenants and blends and is also identifying differences in vowel sounds (long versus short). He can pick up an "advanced beginner" or "grade 1 sightword" Bob book and get through most of it without assistance. It's very exciting! I am now getting him to try out writing in his journal by sounding out only. He needs to gain confidence in independent writing. In September I had to write most letters for him to copy and now he's working on writing words by himself!

We're also still working through our Saxon math lessons. We're on lesson 78. We do Saxon math lessons a couple days a week and we do 2 or 3 lessons at a time, unless it's s brand new topic do or him or a lengthy lesson. One of my favorite parts about these lessons is that he also learns days of the week and months of the year and how to read/use a calender. He also learns to tell time!

Hockey season almost gone

Hockey has been going well. :) He daydreams during drills and talks about video games with the other kids on the ice, but at the end of his time at the rink he always says it was, "Awesome!!"

Day 88

Getting back to basics with mixing primary colours (plus white). The pre-schooler was excited about this too!

 Still doing his journal, although what he chooses to write about depends on how long it's going to be. He originally said he was going to write, "I want a starwars lego set with (some character)", it was shortened after he felt like he was writing too much. ;)

We play a sight word matching game, and we also pile them up and I get him to pick the word out that I say. He likes this, but he HATES doing a flashcard style practice. He definitely picks up on words better if it's in the context of a sentence, rather than standing alone.

I posted about this book when I first purchased it. Now that we've had a chance to use it, we both really like it. It's teaching him some basics in reading like consonant blends and vowel sounds but it keeps his attention because he loves the star wars theme. I'm also finding that he doesn't need as much direction to complete pages in this workbook. I hate it when a book designed for grade 1 kids has a grade 3-4 (or higher) reading level for instructions.

 Our reading curriculum is based mostly on Bob books. Reading has been slow-going, but I'm feeling some progress now. He can pick up a new Bob book from set 2 (of 4) or from the Grade 1 sight word box, and make his way through most of it with a bit of assistance. Learning some blends from the Star Wars book seems to be helping.