Having identified to myself that Mondays with the TT would work best if Fran had some self-leading activities to do, i tried to get something ready for her last night. So last night i printed off, laminated and prepared some pink Montessori language materials for her. What made me feel pretty good was that i could see that most of the words were ones she knew or could sound out but i thought it would be sensible to start with something well within her grasp. She loved it and spent a lot of time spreading out and matching the 50 or so 3 letter words, really working hard on sounding out. Then i gave her one of the exersize books that is half lined, asked her to chose 5 words, practise writing them and then illustrate them. She spent ages on it, really working on her letters and producing some really lovely writing – she probably worked away, correcting her own mistakes for about 2 1/2 hours. We did have a slightly bizarre moment when i tried showing her the “bed” thing for getting b’s and d’s round the right way. She listened, appeared to comprehend and then wrote out “deb” ten times… lol… (i think!)
She also spent a good bit of the day playing Jump Ahead: Nature – i don’t really rate Jump Ahead as highly as RR and certainly not as high as DK but this is a nice little programme with some interesting jumping off points in it, like symbiotic relationships and so on. Worth exploring more with her at some point.
Ammi spent all day with the TT, very happily, full on 1-2-1, i tidied and fed the ever hungry Josie. I even bleached the size one nappies ready to sell :~/
Maddy had a nice day at nursery although she and Muhammed apparently had a tiff – both wanted to be lead fireman in a game i’m told – Maddy succinctly put it… “He said sorry for wanting to be in charge instead of me.” Ahem.
I’ve just finished the day with box work for Fran – more Exeter maths (i’m in love with that, i really am), another Flying Boot book and some mental maths where her reading of the questions is just thrilling me. She’s been reading all day – chapter headings, signs, snippets of this and that… she picked up an alphabet sheet i prepared and tried to learn it, picked up a word bank and tried sounding it out. Thrilling stuff :~)
