9.1.2.

Again, we started off with a quick lesson in subtraction, making sure she keeps up with it all. Babe's issue now is rushing through it. Today's worksheet focused on differences of 0 and 1, but they threw in a difference of 2 and Babe missed it. She gets into the pattern of it all then misses the random one! "Take your time" is constantly being said.


Today's discussion focused on illustrators, and after reminding her that illustrators draw the pictures, not write the words, we looked through two books, "Jonathan and His Mommy" and "Kevin and His Dad". Both books have the same author, Irene Smalls, and the same illustrator, Michael Hays. I had Babe look at the expression on the characters' faces to see if the illustrator portrayed the correct emotions. I then covered the words on different pages and had Babe look at the illustration only to figure out what the words might say. She did really well at this! It was fun!


I then brought out a book that she's never seen before, "Blue Chicken" by Deborah Freedman. I gave her a sheet of paper and some markers and told her I was going to read one page in the book without her looking, and we were both going to illustrate what the words say. I picked a page and read the words:


"Blue-yellow ducklings splattered the cat."


I then set ourselves up at opposite ends of the table, built a makeshift wall so we couldn't see each other's drawings, then got to work.

When we were both all done, we compared pictures and had a really great discussion about them! Babe noticed the differences immediately.

"You drew a brown cat and I drew a yellow cat! And I didn't draw ducklings because I drew a picture of after the ducks splattered him."

"You are very right! And you drew a setting. What is the setting of your picture?"

"Inside the house. You don't have a setting!"

"Nope, I didn't even think to draw one."

Then we compared the similarities.

"What color paint is all over each of our cats?"

"Blue!"

"Right! How did we know to draw blue paint on our cats?"

"Because the sentence said, 'blue-yellow ducklings' and ducklings are just yellow! Not blue!"

"Exactly! Now, how come we didn't draw blue cats? We both drew a little bit of blue on our cats."

"Because it said 'splatter'."

"Yes! Do you know what that word means?"

"It means splash around."

AMAZING. 

I then showed her the page in the book we drew from and we compared it to our drawings.

She immediately noticed the main similarity.

"Look! We were right about the blue paint!"

Amazing.

We continued discussing the importance of an illustrator's job, how he has to know how to read really well so he can draw exactly what the author wants.

"Would it make sense if he drew a cat splattering the ducklings with paint?"

"No. That would be like backwards from the words."

So cool.

She loved this activity and asked me if we could do it for another book.

"We should do this like, all summer."

haaaahahaha.

I then had Babe read Blue Chicken as the first book in May. She did amazing! Gah! I'm more and more impressed with her everyday.

After adding it to her Reading Log, I brought out everyone's dried glue dots and handed them each white/light colored crayons. Bubs and Z were all about scribbling on black paper, but with Babe, I told her to try to connect her "stars" into shapes, like real constellations.

She immediately drew the Little Dipper, then the Big Dipper, and from there she went nuts. 

 

I think there's a kite, a snowman, a Santa hat, and some ice cream cones in her sky. She really liked this activity too. 


Yeah we all had fun today.


To finish out the morning, we did her Reading Comprehension lesson using "Kevin and His Dad." This was a tough book but I wanted to see if she could read it, and you know what? She totally did. She even realized it was a tough book when she got to a page full of words.


"Do I have to read all these words?"
"Well yeah it's part of the book isn't it?"
"Yeah..."


But she pulled through and did amazing. She was proud of herself once she realized she added her second book to her Reading Log so quickly!


And with that, it was lunchtime and nap time.


Then dance time.


Middle of the week already! It's flying by!