Dark Days of December

REINDEER GAMES: This morning we started off with a writing exercise. I told the kids, "Imagine that Martians had just landed on earth and everywhere the aliens look they keep seeing things about a reindeer with a red nose. How would you explain Rudolph to them?" I asked them to write three sentences about it. We brainstormed a little together to come up with words they might use (Rudolph, reindeer, sleigh and Christmas) and I wrote those on the white board to help (none of those four are spelled like they sound!)

To say CJ was slow out of the gate would be an understatement. He sat there, pencil hovering over paper, for a "good" 20 minutes. The trouble? He wanted to write a sentence that started with the word "he" and he said he didn't know how to spell it. This is ridiculous for two reasons - 1) He does know how to spell it and 2) even if he didn't know how to spell it, he most certainly could have sounded it out, because he knows all of his letters and letter sounds. But that aside, he was suffering from a full blown case of Perfection Petrification. I told him to go ahead and leave the table, go sit on his bed and chill out and report back when he was ready to get to work. About 15 minutes later he emerged, cured (at least temporarily) and soldiered through the assignment.

As a soundtrack for their Rudolph writing assignment, I played different versions of "Rudolph," of course - including a guitar only version by Sungha Jung, a Korean teen who knows his way around a guitar.

Also in the reindeer vein, I wrote all of the reindeer names on slips of paper and had the kids alphabetize them. I'd just introduced them to alphabetizing last week, and this particular challenge was a good one, because there are, for instance, three reindeer names that start with D (Dasher, Dancer, Donner), so it was a good challenge - and they got to learn that if the first letter is the same, you go to the word's second letter. And if that is the same too (Dasher, Dancer), you then go to the third letter.

EPISODE 7: Today, during our radio theater interlude, Cinnamon Bear, Jimmy, Judy, and the Crazy Quilt Dragon met up with Presto the Magician who was of absolutely no help in their quest to find the silver star for atop the twins' Christmas tree.

Table work today also included a couple of reading comprehension and sequencing exercises. They both aced those quickly, with zero help and with flying colors.

CLASS REUNION: This afternoon we were invited to the home of one of CJ's classmates from Befriended. It meant driving to Bellevue in the pouring rain, but hey, we'll go a long way for a good time. ;) So CJ and Annabelle got to spend an hour and a half playing with three siblings, all boys, ranging from 18 months to 6 years old. On the way over, I talked to CJ about things he might say to or ask his classmate. CJ's first thought?: "What's in your fridge?!"

I couldn't help but laugh.

They played with and alongside each other really nicely for the most part. At one point they were even all dancing together to a CD called Movin' 2 Math by Jack Hartmann, former child psychologist turned full time kiddie music maker. One of the songs, "Make Any Shape and Freeze" had lyrics that instructed them to make various shapes with their body (a gorilla, a body builder, a shark, a chicken, and so on) and then freeze. It was entertaining watching their different dance styles.

On the drive to and fro we listened to "Here Come the ABCs" by They Might Be Giants and "Grammar Rock," from Schoolhouse Rock fame. Good stuff.