Treetop Academy Schedule - Week 8

This week's schedule is a busy one for us. The NC Science Festival starts this week and we plan on going to a bunch of events in addition to our regular classes.

Week of	English Reading	Math
March 31 - April 4
Monday	Phonics clue - Finger blocking Phonics - ai blend Sight words - like, was, have, one, what (review) Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	Math in your hands - ch 11 Alice's Adventures in Math Land SpotIt Math circle - integration, slopes
Tuesday	Phonics clue - Finger blocking Phonics - ai blend Sight words - were, we, said, Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	Math in your hands - 12 Logic Links Alice's Adventures in Math Land
Wednesday	Words all over me (from Wordplay) Phonics - ai blend Sight words - use, how Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	Math in your hands - 13 Alice's Adventures in Math Land Yatzee!
Thursday	I SPY sounds (from Wordplay) Phonics - ay blend Sight words - review all as Nerf practice Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	Math in your hands - 14 Alice's Adventures in Math Land TipOver
Friday	Packing for adventure (from Wordplay) Phonics - ay blend Sight words - review all as a "make a story" card game Daily story writing 10 minutes practice reading	Math in your hands - 14 Alice's Adventures in Math Land Blokus

Reading - the tips from the Reading Rescue 1-2-3 book seem to be working! I'm very excited! Reading no longer seems to be a torture and an ordeal. So I read a paragraph first; then we re-read it together; then Monkey reads it by himself. His reading has become a lot more fluent. He remembers and understands the text much better. Most important of all, he actually wants to read. Sometimes he insists on going well past our 10 minute practice reading. Nor is he afraid to tackle Stage 2 early readers. He even attempts to read on his own (LEGO magazines) and does fairly well.

Writing - that one is still a struggle. I gave up on worksheets some time ago since he is one of those kids who is absolutely crushed by repetitive meaningless (to him) work. So instead he writes a journal. Except his is a story. He just finished his first story "Spy Kids Minecraft Adventure" and is working on his second, "Brain Attack" (fan fiction inspired by Lego Hero Factory). He dictates a couple of short sentences to me and then writes one or two down himself. Writing is still a huge struggle for him - the mechanics is so difficult that there's simply no energy/processing capacity left for spelling work. But at least he's writing a little bit every day.

Math - Monkey's math is very uneven. For example, he watched this "Measuring Coastline" video and, at 4:10 mark announced: "so, he's making a fractal. So, in math, coastline is a fractal." And a few seconds later - "the length will get longer and longer and will be infinity". Or like at today's math circle, where he showed a LEGO pyramid he made, except that it wasn't "filled in" (looked like 4 sets of stairs that met at the top). Another boy said it wasn't a pyramid since it was hollow inside. To which Monkey said that it didn't matter because you can imagine it filled in. Or when he takes just a couple of seconds to figure out how to quickly add "11+22+33+44+55+66+77+88+99". But doing arithmetic within the first 100 is still a struggle and he still gets 12 and 20 confused (names and symbols, not the actual quantities).

Extra stuff this week - the weather is very nice (finally) and warm, so we plan on being outside as much as possible. There's a small natural playground at a nearby park and Monkey loves it there. Plus we can go down to the creek and explore rocks there. There are also the usual fencing practices this week, although we will be skipping yoga. Instead of yoga, we will go on a rock hound tour in the Downtown.

More extra stuff this week - Exploring Energy and the Environment, Landfill Safari, a star party at a local park, a science and technology expo and the NC Literary Festival. Oy vey! Busy week, what did I tell you!