Weekly update for the week of 1/10/2011

   N. had another good week this week.  He is really coming into his own as far as the independent boxes go.  He even did his science experiment independently this week.  Usually I have to help him just due to the fact that his hand tremor can make things difficult to do, but I see that he really wants to be able to do things on his own so I am trying to sit back and wait and only help if he asks for it.  What's a few spills if it means he feels more independent. 

Science has been the favorite subject around here.  He has become an avid bird watcher thanks to the book "Birds of the Air".  He worked very hard on his bird notebooking page this week and drew a purple finch.

We have several bird feeders right out the window and he loved watching them this week as the birds stocked up before snow fell. He loves cardinals so made sure to tell me every time he saw one so that I could get a good picture.

 For his science experiment he made 2 feathers out of paper and then coated one in shortening.  He was pretty amazed that the one with shortening floated. He was very careful to follow the directions exactly.

He had to memorize a poem and he chose the shortest one called "Dust of Snow".  I don't think he chose it because it was short, I think he picked it because it talked about a bird.  He dressed up as a crow to present it as his dad and proceeded to "fly" across the room and land on his snowy tree (the couch).

He did some mapping work of Greece for his history project and he started a new book called "Ancient Greece"  in his read about history box.  He struggled more with his written narration this week, but I think because it was a new book with a new writing style.  I also realized that I haven't done a very good job of getting across to him that he isn't summarizing as much as he should be retelling what he read.  So we are going to focus on that more and see how it goes.

We also started a new storytime book called "Archimedes and the Door to Science".  I was afraid that he would have trouble paying attention to this book, but it is written in a style that seems to draw him in.

He finished his project for Drawn into the Heart of Reading and made a puppet of Sheriff J.D. Saddlesoap.