S is for The Six Swans

This week Grant is learning about the letters S and T. We started off Monday with our usual walk, circle and penny whistle lesson. The penny whistle lesson was different today. We basically stay with the same lesson for 2 weeks (which would be 8 lessons) and then we move on to something new. Grant was pleasantly surprised with the new change.

Next, we moved on to the main lesson. First, I told Grant the next part of our container story about Katie and her family and how they were setting up a temporary home by a nearby stream where Katie would hear many stories from her father. After that I told him the Grimm's fairytale, The Six Swans. I introduced this week's form and the letter S. He easily found the two S's and this week's form in my chalkboard drawing. We practiced drawing the form on his chalkboard and he also traced it with his finger in some flour. We talked about the sound that S makes and made a list of "S" words as Grant was practicing writing the letter S. After that we drew a picture (with our 3 block crayons) in our main lesson books from the story.

Mom's Swan Drawing

Grant's Swan Drawing

Before starting our walk on Tuesday, we walked out the form and the letter S on the driveway. Once inside, he practiced writing the letter S on his chalkboard (this is a hard one for him) and we used dragon tears to make an S and this week's form. Next, Grant re-told me the story of the six swans and we wrote a summary of it in his book. Dad interrupted our lesson at one point so he could show us a turtle he found in the backyard. We all enjoyed watching it, and while we were out there we picked two small red tomatoes off one of our tomato plants. This will be good conversation for tomorrow when we learn about the letter T.

On Wednesday, we learned that Katie's father also set up their camp near a grove of coconut trees and they enjoyed a treat of fresh coconut and coconut milk. After their meal, Katie's father told her about the letter T and the story of The Three Little Men in The Forest. Grant practiced writing the letter T, but he was feeling a little under the weather so we called it a day.

Julia and I left on Thursday morning to take a trip to Toronto, Canada to visit a friend of mine. As luck would have it, Thursday is Dad's day off, so he finished up with Grant's lessons for the week. They talked about the story and wrote a summary of it in his book. Grant also drew this week's form and the letter T in his book. They had fun reviewing all the letters that he has learned so far with a bean bag toss game. I was also able to find a whole coconut at the grocery store, so they had to figure out how to open it and then talked about it and ate the coconut out of the inside. The decided to use a sharp rock to open it, just as those who first discovered them probably did. They said it worked really well. While Grant didn't care much for the coconut, Dad and Johanna liked it.