We All Live in a Capital I

TABLE TIME: This morning's worksheets covered placing periods at the end of a sentence, and the "always capitalize the (standalone) letter I" rule. Frankly, the actual work/task itself is a breeze. What is the bigger challenge - especially for CJ - is following the directions. For instance, problem #1 said 'the cat sat." The title on the page was Capitalizing First Word and the directions were to "copy each sentence correctly on the line. Well, instead of writing "The cat sat." (capitalizing the T in The), he wrote "on the mat" beneath it. While true, based on the graphic on the page, it wasn't following the directions. He made the same type of mistake on all four problems on the page. So, he ended up having to do twice as much work. A tough but important lesson.
To reinforce the Letter I rule, we watched the Sesame Street classic: Capital I.


CALENDAR GIRL (AND BOY): We have been hitting the calendar hard the past week, talking about months and seasons. Today's calendar-centered activities reviewing a calendar, noting that each month has a specific number of days. We went over the "Thirty days has September" rhyme and sang the "Days of the Week" song CJ learned in kgarten last year. I found The Calendar Song on YouTube that covers the days of the week and months of the year. I thought the beavers in it were creepy, but the kids were OK with it.
Of course you know I had to show them the classic Purina Cat Chow ad (January, chow=chow-chow-chow-chow) from my childhood. (And, of course, they were singing it all afternooon.) I followed the cat version up with the original Neil Sedaka version. Calendar Girl. Still a catchy tune after all these years.

CONSONANT BLENDS: To help bone up on sight words, letter sounds and consonant blends, the kids viewed a PowerPoint presentation. It was good practice and more dynamic than a worksheet.

FUN & GAMES: The kids spent about a half hour playing "Kitchen Magician" on the Sid the Science Kid Web site. It was about heat is used to change food. It made Annabelle hungry for a grilled cheese sandwich. Of course, I obliged come lunchtime. : )

PARK PROGRESS: We decided to combine some PE (a robust walk) with satisfying curiosity. We wanted to check the progress on the park at the end of our block that's in the process of a makeover. Unfortunately, not much to see on that front. On the way back, Annabelle collected a bunch of dandelions. Back home, she held them skyward and said, "I'm like the Statue of Liberty, but instead of a torch, I have a bouquet." She requested I take a picture and then said, "Put that on the blog." Oh, OK. ...


ARE YOU READY FOR YOGA?: So goes the first line to the welcome song the kids sing at yoga each week. When we got there, I could see that instructor Nicole had set up all sorts of physical activity stations in the studio. I turned to CJ and said, "Looks like today is the Yogalimpics!" That got him - and every other kid within earshot - excited.

IT JUST NEVER STOPS: After yoga and after dinner, the kids were both hot to play PBS Island - a super educational Web site that's an offshoot of good old Public Broadcasting System programming. It's cool because they are playing games (and learning) and when they're done, I can go in and track their progress.