First week of 2010

The first week went very smoothly indeed. Tammy works hard in her Ace books - math and English. She will finish the last of Grade 3 work in math soon and then start with Grade 4! This week she had to count money again and that was fine, but when I scored her measuring of pictures and drawn lines, the answers did not match those in the score book - only to find that the drawn lines in the book were not accurate at all! A line of 12.3 mm is given as 12 1/2 cm. I find this pretty shocking - should write to ACE. The lines they draw in the book, should be very accurate don't you think?

English is still Grade 2 level, but we are getting there. She is much more keen to do creative writing e.g. to write sentences with given words. On Thursday I stayed the afternoon while she did her homework and she really battled with making sentences with "isn't", "wasn't" etc. It is not that she doesn't know what the words mean, but to have to think up sentences is still hard for her.

On the grammar side, I find that the ACE books do not give enough drill work - she needs much, much more before she really grasps a concept. When she has to chose between three words e.g. to / too/ two and underline the correct one, she is usually able to do it, but when it comes to chosing the correct form of a verb, e.g the children is / are at school the alternatives seem to confuse her. I now try to get her to give the correct form of the verb, by simply writing the verb e.g "eat, ate, eaten" at the top of a couple of sentences with blanks where she has to write in the appropriate form of "eat". I also underline the timewords or auxiliary verbs to help her choose the correct form. So far it seems to work.

For reading we are busy with two books. I want her to read a Secret Seven book by Enid Blyton all by herself - I just give her monkey puzzle type questions on the story, which she has to score herself. The idea of the questions is just to make sure that she understands the story. I wrote meanings of new words in pencil above the few words that I thought she might struggle with, but they are few and far between. So far she seems thrilled with the book and that is my aim: to let her experience that reading by yourself can be great fun! For speech we practise asking and answering these questions orally.

The other book is another "High School Musical" story: this one is about school elections - a fun way to revise the whole voting process and the vocabulary that goes with it. (If we hadn't done Elections as a theme last year, I doubt whether she would understand anything of the story.) We read this book together: We read aloud together and she follows with her finger and we discuss the story as we go along. My aim is to keep on improving fluency of reading (eyemovements) as well as her vocabulary.

May the rest of the year be as much fun as the first week!

Tamerin's own blogs

We are back after the holidays. Most of last week was spent in Tamerin creating her own blogs. She enjoyed writing her profile, choosing her favourite books, music etc. I sometimes had to give hints e.g "What C.D do you always play in my car?"
Making the Diary Blog was easy - she just had to copy her diary she had typed so far. The Bible verse blog was a different matter, as she has been copying her daily verse by hand, which meant she has had to retype them all. She types slowly, but with less and less help. She types her written work, without me having to dictate. When she has finished, I get her then to read what she has typed and she is usually able to see where she has left out a word or a letter. This is a major step forward! She has retyped the verses we did in January and February, so there is still a long way to go before we get to just our daily verse again. Usually these verses were taken out of the Bible story we read that day, but sometimes they were verses that just the Lord just gave us. It has been benficial to revise our Bible "work" of the year again.

The past week we have spent more and more time in praying together. We have a schedule based on the Lord's prayer that we use. Praying does not only help her in her relation with the Lord (of course) but also with her speech. (Generally her speech is still indistinct, but there has been a slow by sure improvement).

Tamerin now writes her diary for homework on her "Diary originals" file. The next morning she copies it onto her "Diary" file and I help her with corrections (i.e. from present tense to past tense) and to expand it (i.e. to write about important happenings she has left out). I can really recommend keeping a diary. She enjoys it, although it is still tiring. In the beginning of the year, she wrote very short sentences and these were more or less dictated letter by letter. Now she can write simple sentences independently and is usually able to correct her own mistakes. She is so proud of herself when she remembers how to spell a word or "worked out" how to spell a word e.g. "pram".

I hope that later in life she will read her diary again and enjoy remembering this time. My vision is that her diary will become more and more a mirror of what she has done. I also hope that the practice in typing written script and generally working on the computer will lead to a job one day.

Special child's diary Jan - Feb 08

I have taught Amy to type on the computer and she has caught on surprisingly quickly - uses the right fingers on the different keys. However, she types very slowly. I try to get her to practice both spelling and typing by typing rows of same or similar words e.g. these and those or day and say. She quickly tyres of this. It is boring and although I see the progress, it lacks meaning for Amy. She enjoys typing her diary though. Her language ability is poor and she struggles to construct sentences, so I help her to think about her day and to give her the means to verbally express her daily experiences. Most sentences are dictated and words are spelled. This is itself is significant: I hope that one day she will be able to take down messages. At this stage it seems more important to learn to "write" from dictation than to be able to spell by herself. But because many words are repeated often, she types quite a few from memory e.g. the word chicken. We have made several purchases of chicken for several chicken recipes. Through reading the word in her recipes, shop adverts etc. and through writing it out in various shopping lists and budgets, she is now able to type it from memory.

I have taught her to copy and paste text, so some sentences lose out on the actual typing practice, but then learning to use windows properly, is also "so cool".

Whilst the diary helps her with spelling, sentence construction and typing, it is also a mini record of what she has done in school - for herself, her parents or anyone to read. (I often let her read her previous inscriptions and she loves this.)

From now on I'll post her diary inscriptions regularly, but here is the whole lot to date:

Tamerin’s diary
9 January 2008
Today I learned about money.
I read My secret unicorn page 1 to 3 .
I swam 40 laps.
I painted a rainbow.

10 January 2008
I drew a cross.
We went shopping.
We made bobotie.
I practiced spelling.

11 January 2008
I drew a heart and a Bible.
I counted money.
I practiced words.
We played a memory game.
I started to knit

15 January 2008
I started to sew.
We played cards.
We swam 50 laps.
I read My Secret Unicorn page 1 to 4.
I made a shopping list.
The electricity was off.

16 January 2008
I learnt I must obey my leaders.
The electricity was off.
We went shopping.

17 January 2008
I made chicken a la king.
The electricity was off.
We played cards.
I sewed again.

21 January 2008
On the news they talked about power cuts.
We watched weather forecast. There was a 60% chance of rain.
We practiced ay spelling words like day and way.
We read My Secret Unicorn page 4-6.
I sewed on a button.

22 January 2008
On the news they talked about power cuts and a man who was charged with murder of Bret Kebble.
They talked about tennis in Australia.
We watched weather forecast. There was a 60% chance of rain.
I learned about google earth.

28 January 2008
Last week the power was off often.
Last week I practiced sh spelling.
Today I practiced th spelling.
I counted in twenties.
I counted my money.
We danced and did exercises.

29 January 2008
Yesterday I went to have my eyes checked.
Today I drew Joseph and his boss’s wife. He said no!
We watched weather forecast. There was a 30% chance of rain

4 February 2008
Last Thursday I burned my arm.
On Friday I went to my cousins’ house.
Today it is windy. We walked to the gate and back.
I practiced th spelling.
We played ball.
I weighed my animals. Duchess weighs 370g and Poodle weighs 110g.

5 February 2008
I practiced th spelling some more.
I nearly made a crab stand. We danced for 30 minutes.
We checked for Ingredients.
Chantel came to visit. We had chicken for lunch.
We watched High school musical 2.

6 February 2008
I went to the garage with Daddy. A man worked on his car.
I learned about the Passover ( Exodus 12).
We revised all the sight words until page 8 of My secret Unicorn.

7 February 2008
We went to the shop. We bought Food for R 98.65. I got R1.35 change.
I made lasagna without spinach. The shop did not have spinach.

8 February 2008
I watched news with my Daddy. Today was the opening of parliament. I saw President Mbeki.
Mommy is going to the dentist. I am going to the eye doctor.

11 February 2008
I played tennis. I sewed on the sewing machine. I made a bag.

13 February 2008
Yesterday I sewed a lot on the sewing machine. I typed a recipe.
Today I made my parents cards. I counted my money. I made a budget.
I made valentine cards.

15 February 2008
Yesterday we bought food at PicknPay . I made chicken pie and roast vegetables. Our guests liked it.
Today we measured the distance between the house and the gate.
I did ½ price sums.

19 February 2008
Yesterday we practiced When and Where questions.
I made sums from 1+1=2, 2+2=4 till 25+25=50.
I practiced words of page 9 of My Secret Unicorn. I read pages 1-9.
Today I typed God’s ten great laws and painted the two stones. We walked 6 times to the gate and back i.e. 1.2 km.

21 February 2008
Yesterday we went shopping. I counted money. We went to school and I gave my friend her watch.
Today I made chocolate squares for my birthday party on Saturday.
We practiced sums while we walking. We walked 7 times to the gate and back
=14 x 100m
=1400m
=1.4km

22 February 2008
Yesterday I got my glasses. Now I can see better.
Today I made a fridge tart for my birthday party on Saturday.
I practiced explaining how to make the tart with my teacher, in case my aunts ask me how I did it.