Week 16 – Balto Results – JenEric Designs

I’m not going to lie, I was not expecting virtual school to go well this week, seeing as it’s the first day back after the break. And it was a little chaotic. But Dragon focussed well until ten minutes before morning recess, raised her hand multiple times, and even tried to sing one of the new songs (she got the first line, in tune and everything, so I’m going to call it a win). She did printing of words that started with the letter N, and she gave suggestions of words that start with N – neige! (We talked about this word yesterday! Yay!)

After recess, they were read a story, and Dragon focussed well. She REALLY liked the cute animal, but I don’t think she folowed the story. I find that a problem with the YouTube readings – they read too quickly, don’t pause, and don’t have the words, so it’s harder to follow. I’m hoping that there’s more this week that I can read aloud to Dragon.

After lunch, there were multiple kids who wanted to present various toys. Dragon presented her creme glacee shop, and even used French words here and there, like for the colours. She answered questions and showed off all the pieces (sometimes showing the screen instead of the camera, which was quite funny; our set-up consists of a camera on a tripod, a snowball microphone, and the “monitor”, which is a TV mounted to the ceiling).

Lastly, they counted how many school days they had had. Dragon did NOT understand what was going on. They asked her to count, which she got, and started counting at her usual pace (quickly). But the teacher was circling the days, so she was counting much slower. Which meant that, from Dragon’s perspective, she was restarting. So she got super confused and upset. So I had her just listen, but she wasn’t happy about it.

Therefore, I’m going to say that overall it was a good day, but it ended on a sad note. Fortunately, we had a convenient distraction in the form of new mattresses for the kids that arrived during the school day.

Homeschool was actually surprisingly good this week. Again, I was expecting a lot of resistance, especially since I changed up the worksheets somewhat.

Dance

She did not do ballet this week, as our basement was taken up by inflating mattresses (the kids both got new mattresses).

Music

Piano: We reviewed the clapping and counting for the notes and the tests, since of which she remembered and some of which she didn’t. We reviewed where the notes were on the staffs (ABCDE). She played all the pieces she knew before the break, mostly very well. Then they discovered that she’d been reading the letters instead of looking at the notes when she was sight reading. They played chopsticks (she’s remembering all the notes and hand movements; the only problem was counting to six on the first key) and Jingle bells (first two bars by herself).

We have a new French playlist that I can play through the Google, with a lot of songs. Before we got this set up, we listened to La Chicane.

Crochet

She did crochet twice this week, and we got a couple inches of one row done. It’s slow going, but her hands aren’t used to the hold on the hook, so I feel like this is good progress.

Basic Information

We kept up with these throughout the break, so she was still able to repeat these quite well. We are working on the day before and the day after any given day. The months of the year is going well, although she keeps forgetting about Septembre and Octobre for some reason. All months have proper pronounciation now, and we’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.

The saisons de l’année are now all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.

When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she now responds in complete sentences.

Printing words

Printing was one of the new worksheets. She told me that the words I chose were excellent choices. It’s nice to get positive feedback from the student. 😉 I feel as though her letters have improved. I like that she’s really trying to do the letters in lower case, including her name. I changed up the font for the “blank” worksheet to Comic Sans before the font I was using (Calibri) had funny shapes for ‘a’ and ‘g’, and the ‘t’ was too short – she didn’t believe me when I said it needed to be taller.

Counting objects/math-type activities

This worksheet has more space for pictures, which Dragon noticed immediately. “Mum, there’s more of them than usual!” She still has no problems with counting these, and I feel like her numbers have improved.

Then there was the new math worksheet. I think it was too easy for her. I explained what she should do for the first one, with the drawing of the pictures, and then she zipped through the rest. I might be making the worksheets more challenging in the future… The suite at the bottom was really easy for her too.

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

We watched Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!

Activity

Viruses – We watched Wil Wheaton’s Table Top episode of Pandemic in the afternoon before we played the game itself, which ended up being an excellent idea. She understood what we were trying to do and a bit of the strategy (she’s actually quite good at logic puzzles, which is super nice). And we managed to win! With one Player card left! So it was VERY close, despite having completely erradicated 3/4 of the diseases.

Learn about sled dogs – we watched a bunch of YouTube videos about how sled dogs are trained as puppies, and how excited the puppies are to pull the sled. They’re so cute. It almost got me wanting to have a team….and I do NOT like dogs.

Make book of shapes – this was an activity that one of Dragon’s due date group kids did before the holidays. I really liked the idea, so I saved it to remind myself to do it with Dragon this semester. Dragon really enjoyed making a book. I didn’t have to fight her at all to work on it. We started by making a list of shapes (formes) and figuring out their names and what colour they should be. Then we ordered them based on least complex to most complex (number of sides). She printed every word and drew every shape in the book itself (although I helped a tiny bit with a couple (triangle and losange)).