Small School Milestones

Today, we went to a kind of a mom's group science outing. It was at a local park. A mom of two young kids who used to teach science had put together materials for the kids to learn about compasses and sundials. Xander was fascinated.

The kids also played on the playground and had lots of fun together. Our playground group friends were all there and so were lots and lots of other kids.

At home, Xander reviewed his memory work (the poem "Summer Afternoon," the songs "Scarborough Fair" and "A Man's A Man for A' That," and a list of Family Rules). He surprised me by reciting the poem all the way through before I could show him his prompt. (We have a dry-erase board consisting of the lines of the poem with the words he's memorized replaced with dashes. It was almost all dashes before today.) I have probably slowed him down more than necessary memorizing the poem, but I wanted this to go smoothly and to show him the value of working on something little by little every week. I told him I was proud of his work, how he had worked on memorizing that poem for so many days, and he said, "Thanks, Mom! You too."

The poem is:

Summer Afternoon

by A.A. Milne

Six brown cows walk down to drink

(All the little fishes blew bubbles at the may-fly).

Splash goes the first as he comes to the brink,

Swish go the tails of the five who follow....

Twelve brown cows bend drinking there

(All the little fishes went waggle-tail, waggle-tail)-- 

Six from the water and six from the air;

Up and down the river darts a blue-black swallow.

We went together through Lesson 4 in Progressive Recorder Method. I played my flute and he played the recorder. Throughout, Nick sat on the couch listening and watching attentively. I think he's our real music aficionado. Actually, Xander taught him a couple of notes on his flutophone yesterday. I can picture Nick being able to play in the recorder book within a year. I don't aim to teach him this year unless it comes naturally, though.

Xander has practiced recorder for more than four weeks, but I wanted to make sure the lessons were all solidified in his mind (and fingers) before moving on to Lesson 5. He knows his notes and can sight-read all the songs through this lesson. I noticed he barely squeaked at all, so his tone has improved greatly as well. He plays the songs very slowly to get the fingerings right, but I am impressed with his knowledge.

Other lessons today: listening to the Nutcracker Suite and examining more Norman Rockwell paintings and discussing them (Freedom from Want, Thanksgiving: Girl Praying, Santa at His Desk).

After this, he earned his Alexander the Great warriors. I gave him a sneak peek at the Ancient World pages that pertain to Alexander. He is so excited working with his new figures.

And by the way, Nick knows the sounds to just about all the letters of the alphabet now! He also put his underwear on all by himself yesterday (a life skill Erik suggested we work on with him). There were some false starts and times I had to help him after he went to the bathroom, but the spark is there. He is excited to learn to do things all by himself.