Good morning, everyone. I never gave a tutoring report yesterday, so I'll do it now. Last night, I was busy preparing the new fill-in-the-blanks sheets for next time. Also, based on her writing, I found some holes in the girl's syntax that I still need to make some more sheets for. She mixes up "his," "her," and "its." Also she needs to know whether to use a past, present, or future verb with a sentence. So this morning, I'll do another sheet of each of those.
I started with the boy, who refused to go first, but finally, when I insisted, he went first. I wonder why he argues when he finally does what I say. He did his fill-in-the-blanks -- he chose 2 ones of 5 sentences for 5 words instead of one of the older 10-sentence ones. Then we read about guide dogs for the blind. He did well, but of course, there were words he didn't know, and they went on fill-in-the-blanks sheets for the future.
Then the girl. She did the sheets on the issues I mentioned above, also chose to do 2 5-sentence ones of words she didn't know from previous reading, and then read a short piece on penguins. Did you know there's a kind of penguin called a Macaroni? Weird! I should look that up. I wonder if they misspelled it or something. It's a sheet I got off the Internet, so who knows?
We still had time left, so I read them the story of Bluebeard, and we discussed it verbally -- no writing -- so the girl could get the idea of thinking about what she read, not just repeat what the story was about. That was a concept she totally didn't get when I tried it with her once. I thought introducing the concept when both kids and I discussed it would be easier for her, since she could take an example from her brother. The questions were things like whether the wife should have gone into the closet when her husband said not to, whether curiosity is a good thing, whether it was right for her brothers to kill Bluebeard, etc. I explained that the law usually goes easier on someone who kills someone in self-defense or in defense of someone else (as in the case of Bluebeard) than if you plot to kill someone just because you don't like them. Then, of course, the recent case of the truck driver who killed the bartender in Simeon's came up. I explained that there will be an investigation of how and why it happened, whether the trucker was at fault for his brakes failing or whether it was the trucking company, etc. The boy asked how this investigation would be done, and we got into a brief discussion of forensics, so I printed out something about that for future reading. It was also interesting when we touched on capital punishment, whether we have the right to kill a killer. Should they be kept in prison or killed? The boy thought if someone killed just one person, he should be let go if he learned his lesson and wouldn't do it again. I asked, "What if he killed another person after he was let go? Wouldn't the people who let him go be responsible for that 2nd person's death?"
These kinds of discussions we have are ones I don't think the kids experience with their parents, so it's good for them to start thinking. I told them that reading is more than just taking in a story but about thinking over what you read, deciding what dynamics were behind what the people did, etc.
Then I took the boy down to the restaurant on my way home. I discussed with the kids' mom our planned trip to Watkins Glen this Saturday. When the kids and I discussed it, I wasn't sure if we should go up the hundreds of steps for the last portion, get up to the playground/picnic area, and take a bus back down or if we should avoid the steps and just turn around and walk back, but the kids insisted they want to do the steps, so I guess that's what we'll do (puff, puff!).
It was pouring rain yesterday, so prospects of an outdoors trip looked bleak, but it's supposed to clear up by Saturday, so we''ll hope for good weather. The water in the glen should be nice and full, making the falls more spectacular.
I started with the boy, who refused to go first, but finally, when I insisted, he went first. I wonder why he argues when he finally does what I say. He did his fill-in-the-blanks -- he chose 2 ones of 5 sentences for 5 words instead of one of the older 10-sentence ones. Then we read about guide dogs for the blind. He did well, but of course, there were words he didn't know, and they went on fill-in-the-blanks sheets for the future.
Then the girl. She did the sheets on the issues I mentioned above, also chose to do 2 5-sentence ones of words she didn't know from previous reading, and then read a short piece on penguins. Did you know there's a kind of penguin called a Macaroni? Weird! I should look that up. I wonder if they misspelled it or something. It's a sheet I got off the Internet, so who knows?
We still had time left, so I read them the story of Bluebeard, and we discussed it verbally -- no writing -- so the girl could get the idea of thinking about what she read, not just repeat what the story was about. That was a concept she totally didn't get when I tried it with her once. I thought introducing the concept when both kids and I discussed it would be easier for her, since she could take an example from her brother. The questions were things like whether the wife should have gone into the closet when her husband said not to, whether curiosity is a good thing, whether it was right for her brothers to kill Bluebeard, etc. I explained that the law usually goes easier on someone who kills someone in self-defense or in defense of someone else (as in the case of Bluebeard) than if you plot to kill someone just because you don't like them. Then, of course, the recent case of the truck driver who killed the bartender in Simeon's came up. I explained that there will be an investigation of how and why it happened, whether the trucker was at fault for his brakes failing or whether it was the trucking company, etc. The boy asked how this investigation would be done, and we got into a brief discussion of forensics, so I printed out something about that for future reading. It was also interesting when we touched on capital punishment, whether we have the right to kill a killer. Should they be kept in prison or killed? The boy thought if someone killed just one person, he should be let go if he learned his lesson and wouldn't do it again. I asked, "What if he killed another person after he was let go? Wouldn't the people who let him go be responsible for that 2nd person's death?"
These kinds of discussions we have are ones I don't think the kids experience with their parents, so it's good for them to start thinking. I told them that reading is more than just taking in a story but about thinking over what you read, deciding what dynamics were behind what the people did, etc.
Then I took the boy down to the restaurant on my way home. I discussed with the kids' mom our planned trip to Watkins Glen this Saturday. When the kids and I discussed it, I wasn't sure if we should go up the hundreds of steps for the last portion, get up to the playground/picnic area, and take a bus back down or if we should avoid the steps and just turn around and walk back, but the kids insisted they want to do the steps, so I guess that's what we'll do (puff, puff!).
It was pouring rain yesterday, so prospects of an outdoors trip looked bleak, but it's supposed to clear up by Saturday, so we''ll hope for good weather. The water in the glen should be nice and full, making the falls more spectacular.
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I'll never tell!!
