Tutoring report.
The kids have been very cooperative lately. I think maybe it's because school is out, and they aren't so overloaded with work. But I'm not really questioning my good fortune.
I started the lesson with a discussion of what "You can't always tell a book by its cover" means. Of course, the boy, who contributed most to the discussion, took it literally, that it was about books. We discussed the ways a book's cover might not really tell you what is inside. Then I asked how that might apply to people. Finally, they got the idea that a person might be ugly, but that doesn't mean he's a mean person. Then I read them the story of Beauty and the Beast, asking them to consider what we just discussed. After the story, I had them both write about how the story related to that saying. The boy understood, but this was the girl's first real attempt at analyzing a story instead of just writing the plot. I had asked her to do this once before with no success. She just didn't get the concept. Now, however, she did, though she labored over what to say. I ask the boy to complete one page of lined notebook paper on his topic, and the girl only gets to complete a half page. This prevents them from being lazy and only writing a sentence or 2. They had trouble thinking of things to write about, even so.
From these writing assignments, I get a very accurate picture of where they need work with grammar. Then I make worksheets for next lesson. The boy will have to conjugate toe verb "to look." One of his sentences started, "If you looks ugly ..." He knows now to capitalize at the beginning of a sentence, but he also capitalized in the middle, so I pointed these mistakes out to him, but I can't figure how to make a worksheet of it. I could make sentences with improper capitalization that he needs to find, but I think that's still too challenging.
The girl did pretty well, though.
Then they did worksheets, including the fill-in-the-blanks for vocab. The girl still needs to get past, present, and future firm in her mind.
Last but not least, they asked for a Mad Libs. It's been a long time since we did that. I don't have too many left, so it's just as well we stretch them out.
The boy asked some questions. First, he and his sister have a constant feud going. Each retaliates with insults after getting insulted. I explained a feud and described briefly how getting revenge back and forth just makes things worse. I mentioned the Hatfields and McCoys. I was going to assemble info on their feud for the boy to read, but the plot is really complicated, so I think I'll let that subject die.
Still, next lesson, the kids want to write about each other, and I foresee a lot of animosity. Should I just let them go, or should I insist they write good things as well as bad things?
The boy also asked if NYC ever had a hurricane or tornado. I mentioned Hurricane Sandy, and wrote something up on that with lots of photos.
He had a new toy, a top, and neither kid knew what it was called, so they learned a new word. I mentioned we had different tops when I was kid, mainly the kind where you push a handle up and down to make it spin. So the boy asked how many different kinds of tops there are, and I said, "Lots." Of course, I made something for him to read about the history of tops and the different kinds. This is rather long and involved, so I may read it aloud to him when he gets his tonsils out and won't be allowed to speak for a week. I thought he could check-mark words he didn't know, and if he wanted me to stop and explain the meaning, he'd circle the word. I can't imagine what else to do with him during the week he won't be allowed to speak.
Wednesday, I'll be tutoring both sets of kids -- the new boys for the first time. Of course, I'm very curious to see what their skill level is.
