09 10

23 January 2010

Monkey Reads!



I knew he was close last week, and this week he did it! That's the biggest news in our week. It's really hard to top something like that. He made it through the first of the Bob Books, the one called "Mat." It was hard work, particularly on pages with 4 words, but he did it! Hurray Monkey!!


In Math this week, we drew a picture of 5. Monkey's fine motor skills really aren't up to this sort of thing yet, so I did shapes in groups of 5, and we both colored them in. We also counted eggs while making scrambled eggs, and talked a little about "partners" in numbers. It wasn't a very intense week for math. I did discover that I've lost Anno's Counting Book, which is more than a little irritating. I just bought that in November.

We also did a cool science experiment because Monkey's been asking why snow melts.

Our current read-aloud is the Boxcar Children #1, which we've only got 1 chapter left in. Monkey said he wanted to save that for another day, so we'll probably finish it up this weekend. I'm planning to do The Complete Winnie-the-Poohwhich I bought at Half-Price Books this afternoon. I've been wanting to do a story that featured a BOY, and this one includes a silly BEAR, so it should be a hit, as Money-boy loves bears.

It's really a last week thing, but we visited my sister and she and her husband went with us to the Chicago Art Museum. We had a blast, and she did a lovely job of blogging it, including Monkey's imaginative "car ride" on one of the touchable displays, wherein he took us on many trips to Home Despot to buy... soda, soda, and more soda. He had us all rolling. It was so funny! I, on the other hand, have felt crummy much of the week, which resulted in many more naps than blog posts.

Visit Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers to read more weekly wrap-ups.

10 comments:

Cheryl Pitt said...

WooHoo! It's so exciting to see them grasp something like reading. Way to go!!!!! I've heard the Boxcar series are great, but I haven't had the chance to see any of them.

Ritsumei said...

Yeah, I'm pretty excited.

The Boxcar Children has been a fun read. It's clearly set in another time, and there have been a few times when I've had to suspend disbelief a little, but Monkey's been enjoying the story, and they'd be good books for the munchkin just getting into chapter-books. Plus, they've got nice values tucked into the story, which is always nice.

Sigalit Chana said...

Yay! I love it when you finally see the fruit of labor :D Happy Reading!

Thanks for your comment/ question on our BoC... we used some from www.homeschoolinthewoods.com that I purchase. I have also found, the children like to illustrate the figures also. And they seem to actually retain it more, if they have a hand it "creating" the characters/figures. As I am sure you saw :D
It can always be redone later, and what a priceless way to get them into what your learning about!

Unknown said...

Way to go buddy. The Boxcar Children books are wonderful. My kids read these too. As did I when I was a kid.

smithtrek said...

Hooray for Monkey! Tell him his Sunbeam teacher is very proud of him!

Keeley said...

YES!!! Go Monkey! =)

Jamie {See Jamie blog} said...

Woohoo! That's a big week! :)

Stefanie said...

Go Monkey Go!! It's so exciting when the reading finally clicks!

Calina said...

Yay, Monkey! Now that he's gotten the Bob book down, he'll probably just take off on his reading!

We love the Boxcar Children, too, but my daughter is really into the American Girls right now.

I also have the Pooh book you were talking about. None of my three girls enjoyed it - ever. The pictures are beautiful, but the stories seem dull and use alot of uncommon vocabulary, IMHO. Hopefully, Monkey will enjoy it, though.

Ritsumei said...

Yep, it was a big week! We're pretty excited. This week we've got some unusual stuff going on and our schedule is rather messed up, but hopefully we can keep the momentum up so he doesn't loose it. It's hard work still, so he's very moody about when he'll do it. If he's not in the mood he'll just tell me "my voice is too tired." Silly little boy!

We read the first chapter today, and he seemed pretty interested. I don't mind the older language: it's typically more beautiful that more modern English bothers with being, and I think that exposure to that sort of language now will make things easier when he's reading other, harder classics later. Plus, it's not that different from "Little House on the Prarie" or the "Secret Garden" and he enjoyed both of those.

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin