Homeschooling Journal Friday 7-18-14

Fri 7-18-14

We continued with talking about words with the "ch" sound. 

In the morning Gwyneth and I talked about how we "change" clothes and "choose" an outfit. I used a sing-songy voice to keep her attention on repeating the words and the "ch" sound. She is a visual learner, so when there is no visual to keep her attention, singing really helps.

We read a book that mentioned making binoculars (which was a craft project we did last week) and watching birds. So we said that we "watch" birds and emphasized the "ch" sound at the end of the word.

For our physical activity the kids joined me to "watch" a yoga DVD. It is prenatal yoga so it is modified to be very easy. Gwyneth followed many of the movements during the first 20 minutes of the 45 minute video and participated sporadically for the remainder. I was impressed that she stayed in the room with me the whole time. We talked about how in yoga, we "stretch" our arms and legs and emphasized the "ch" sound.

Then the kids were allowed to "watch" Sesame Street on the "couch" but before it started, we wrote our new "ch" vocabulary on the library/TV room white board, reviewed the activities we had done that morning and Gwyn helped spell out each word and pointed to the letters as she said them: change, choose, watch, stretch, couch.

At lunchtime, we used the kitchen white board again to spell out new "ch" words: we go to the "kitchen" for "lunch." Lunch was a turkey, cheese and lettuce tortilla wrap (we wrote the word "crunch" to describe how the lettuce sounded), an applesauce "pouch" and a special dessert of "chocolate chips." I was happy that it didn't seem too difficult for Gwyneth to hear the "ch" sound in the middle or at the end of words. We also discussed how "lunch" rhymes with "crunch" and "pouch" rhymes with "couch," but I'm not sure how well this sank in for Gwyneth. Little brother Ryker is very interested in rhyming words right now so he enjoyed talking about the rhymes more than listening to Gwyn spelling out the words. Gwyneth has known all of her alphabet letters for a long time, so spelling out words is easy for her, but Ryker is just starting to recognize the letters. I think it helps them both to hear the other talk about the letters and the concept of letter/word sounds and rhyming.