Tutoring report.
I picked the kids up at the restaurant today, which is unusual. They were there with their dad. I don't know where their mom and little brother were, and when I got them home, their grandmother was there. I asked them why I had picked them up at the restaurant, and the answer I got was that their dad have been giving them spelling tests. Aha! I wondered why, when I picked them up, he asked me if either of them said, "It's too hard. I can't do this. It's impossible." I told him they both said that. The boy told me the spelling tests his dad gave them were really hard, words they didn't know. I asked if the word list was from school, and they said no. I guess their dad was either trying to help or trying to see what they know. The parents focus a lot on spelling, and I focus on reading aloud, pronunciation, and word recognition. I'm less concerned with writing a word 10 times. Besides, they get that from their parents.
I wanted to have a cooperative reading like last time, but the girl started reading, the boy excused himself to go to the bathroom, and he never came back. I had a piece I had put together about pinatas, which they apparently learned about in school. But when I found they didn't know it was a Mexican tradition, I decided they could learn a little about the subject. And I found something out, too. Pinatas were originally a Chinese thing. When Marco Polo visited China, he brought back the custom to Italy and Spain. When Spanish missionaries went to South America to convert the natives, they taught them the custom, which was similar to games and religious rites the Indians already practiced. So that's how the pinata made its journey from China to Mexico.
Of course, the question, "Who's Marco Polo?" came up, so this evening, I got info from the internet for them to read. I think this will be for the boy only.
The boy returned, so I had him read the whole thing about pinatas, even though he wanted to start where the girl left off. Then I had him choose one of the many reading comprehension things I had printed out. He more or less grabbed the first one, which was about dreaming. He wanted to read it silently, which I allowed, and then he answered all the questions correctly. I generally don't like them to read silently, since I don't know whether they understand words or can pronounce them properly, but both kids were in an itchy mood, so I didn't press too hard today. Besides, the pinata thing was really too hard for the girl.
Then the girl read her 2 little books for school. I asked her why she resisted them so much since they are so easy for her. She said she didn't know.
Next, we did 2 short Mad Libs, which we haven't done in a while, and then I had 2 word searches that were duplicates, and the kids did them. The boy won. They seem to like the word searches as a contest rather than just to do them. Whatever works, right? I should print out more duplicates.