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I need to apologize. When I chose this movie as a Halloween movie, I COMPLETELY forgot that the Halloween part I was remembering was actually a short that was released at a later time! I hope you enjoyed the movie even though it wasn’t Halloween-y.

Dance

I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted. (repeated from last week)

Music

He has been diligent about practising his scales and doing the exercise from the book. He also says out loud what the scale letters are as he plays them.

Crochet

I helped him do several blocks of stitches… probably about 3 inches. He’s getting close to the end and is very excited about that (I’m still doing extra when I feel like it).

Basic Information

We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). He sang along unprompted. He’s still having trouble with the names and the order when the songs aren’t playing.

Printing words

He enjoys doing this activity and regularly completes it early in the week. He was confused about why there was an extra line at the bottom, but understood when he ran out of room and needed it.

Counting objects/math-type activities

He did well on his counting. He needed me to write the numbers for him to copy.

Storytime

We got new little French books on Monday (from the library). I am getting him to read the small words that he knows, like ‘le’ and ‘la’, ‘un’ and ‘une’, and I’ve started him on the bigger words that show up in multiple books, like ‘voici’, ‘regarde’, ‘dit’, and ‘ballon’.

Activity

Draw pumpkin face – he has been very resistant to colouring, so I was SHOCKED when he wanted to colour in the entire pumpkin

Experiment: elephant toothpaste – this has failed spectacularly every single time I’ve tried this experiment. It’s getting to be quite frustrating. It failed again on Monday, so we tried with a different kind of yeast on Wednesday, and it worked!!!

Pumpkin carving – We waited to do this until Monday (yesterday) because we didn’t want the pumpkin to rot. And then I could be there. 🙁 But Éric and Pegasus had a great time!

Pegasus hadn’t remembered seeing this before, but by the end of it, he said that we had watched it with my mom “yesterday”, which means recently. He loved it, and asked to watch all the bonus features (which is normal), and didn’t get bored even once (not necessarily normal). He got a little nervous at the end, but he loved the zombies and thought they were hilarious. They are.

Dance

I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted. (repeated from last week)

Music

He has been diligent about practising his scales and doing the exercise from the book. He also says out loud what the scale letters are as he plays them. He says that the songs in the book are boring and will add things to them to make them sound better. (He’s not wrong.) He made up the song for his movie and played it on the piano.

Crochet

I helped him do several blocks of stitches… probably about 3 inches.

Basic Information

We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). He sang along unprompted. The days of the week song that we’ve been listening to has BEEN REMOVED and I don’t know who made it so we can’t look it up with the wayback machine! Pegasus is very upset about this (as am I). I’ve reached out to Dragon’s Kindergarten teacher in hopes that she has the link, but I haven’t heard back yet. (No news.)

Printing words

He enjoys doing this activity and regularly completes it early in the week.

Counting objects/math-type activities

He did much better counting on his own this week. He didn’t ask for help with the printing of the numbers, but he did refer to the traced numbers instead.

Storytime

We got new little French books on Monday (from the library). I am getting him to read the small words that he knows, like ‘le’ and ‘la’, ‘un’ and ‘une’, and I’ve started him on the bigger words that show up in multiple books, like ‘voici’, and I’m trying to get him to read the bigger words that show up multiple times in the same book.

Activity

Make a shoebox diorama – he had fun picking out which images to put in his diorama. He had less fun colouring them. He really doesn’t enjoy colouring for some reason. (He also didn’t want to change the colour of his crayon.) His scissor-work was much better than when cutting out the Halloween mask, although he did request assistance for the first little bit of cutting.

Film script in stop-motion – He was so excited to be able to do this. It was the most memorable part of Dragon’s schooling, and he’s super proud of what he made. He came up with the concept from start to finish, and while I might have moved the toys, he was the director in every way. (and writer, and composer, and voice actor)

This is a favourite. Pegasus assures me he understood everything. He ended up watching it alone, as I had a business meeting during his movie timeslot, which worked out very well for everyone. It was a very short week, due to Thanksgiving on Monday and Can*Con 2023 on Friday.

Dance

I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted. (repeated from last week)

Music

He has been diligent about practising his scales and doing the exercise from the book. He also says out loud what the scale letters are as he plays them. He has been actively remembering to keep his elbows tucked and his hand positioning is much improved.

Crochet

I helped him do several blocks of stitches… probably about 6 inches.

Basic Information

We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). He sang along unprompted. The days of the week song that we’ve been listening to has BEEN REMOVED and I don’t know who made it so we can’t look it up with the wayback machine! Pegasus is very upset about this (as am I). I’ve reached out to Dragon’s Kindergarten teacher in hopes that she has the link, but I haven’t heard back yet. (No news.)

Printing words

He has been improving slowly. I like that I don’t have to fight him to get him to do it. He is very pleased with himself for completing them, and usually writes more words than I ask him to do (I split them up over a couple days because he was overwhelmed that first week). I feel like his printing has improved DRASTICALLY since the first week.

Counting objects/math-type activities

He did much better counting on his own this week. He requested help with a few of the numbers.

Storytime

We continued reading the little French books from last week (from the library). I am getting him to read the small words that he knows, like ‘le’ and ‘la’, and I’m trying to get him to read the bigger words that show up multiple times in the same book.

Activity

Plot and write a short Halloween script – we made a list of ideas, Pegasus just rolling with it. I barely had to guide him. I did help him break it down into scenes.
Finish script and make background props – Pegasus decided what he wanted each scene to say in dialogue. He has decided to record his voice. I helped him translate. We decided what props he would need, and realized that he didn’t need to make any. (All my writing)

This was a brand-new movie. The French was very fast. I’m not sure I’d recommend it for the future, but Pegasus says he understood everything. He also took out toys immediately following the movie and had them re-enact most of the movie, so I’m guessing that he understood most of it.

Dance

I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted. (repeated from last week)

Music

He has been diligent about practising his scales and doing the exercise from the book. He also says out loud what the scale letters are as he plays them. My mom noticed that he’s been popping his elbows out, so he’s actively trying to keep them tucked.

Crochet

I helped him do several blocks of stitches… probably about 4 inches.

Basic Information

We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). He sang along unprompted. The days of the week song that we’ve been listening to has BEEN REMOVED and I don’t know who made it so we can’t look it up with the wayback machine! Pegasus is very upset about this (as am I). I’ve reached out to Dragon’s Kindergarten teacher in hopes that she has the link, but I haven’t heard back yet.

Printing words

He has been improving slowly. I like that I don’t have to fight him to get him to do it. He is very pleased with himself for completing them, and usually writes more words than I ask him to do (I split them up over a couple days because he was overwhelmed that first week).

Counting objects/math-type activities

I tried to let him count on his own this week, and he got very angry and didn’t want to do it. It’s frustrating when he’s used to doing it one way and doesn’t want to change things up.

Storytime

We got new mini French books on Monday. I am getting him to read the small words that he knows, like ‘le’ and ‘la’, and I’m trying to get him to read the bigger words that show up multiple times in the same book.

Activity

Draw a monster mask (web templates) – Dragon used this one, Pegasus used this one
I had forgotten that Dragon hadn’t cut very close to the line when she did this activity, and was surprised when Pegasus did the same thing. (I didn’t know it was the same thing until a few days later.) He really didn’t want to cut the paper close to the tabs (for threading the yarn that would tie his mask to his head), and kept resisting finishing his mask until he came up with the suggestion of cutting the tabs off entirely and putting the mask on a popsicle stick. I am very impressed with his problem solving.

Spooky handprint – do NOT use construction paper for this activity! It doesn’t work! Regular printer paper works perfectly, and both kids enjoyed making their handprint and then painting over it.

Cheesecloth ghosts – VERY messy, definitely take the advice of putting down a plastic bag/sheet! (at least it’s just glue and water, but still…it gets everywhere. Also, I suggest you have two people to do the laying of the cheesecloth over the balloon, because it’s really hard to do with only one pair of hands. It also requires two layers of cheesecloth, and needs to dry overnight, so don’t forget to account for that!

Moana is a favourite in our house, so he’s very familiar with both the dialogue and the story. He says he understood a lot of it, but I’m not sure how much he’s remembering.

Dance

I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted. (repeated from last week)

Music

This week, he was given an exercise from the first piano book. He is ridiculously excited about this. He is still practising the scale that he was taught as well.

Crochet

I helped him do several blocks of stitches… probably about 6 inches. He’s excited to be able to wear it, but there’s still so much left to do. In this vein, I have asked his permission to work on it when he’s not there, so that it actually gets completed before the end of the year. The first stripe is complete.

Basic Information

We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). He sang along unprompted.

Printing words

He has been improving slowly. I like that I don’t have to fight him to get him to do it. He is very pleased with himself for completing them, and usually writes more words than I ask him to do (I split them up over a couple days because he was overwhelmed that first week).

Counting objects/math-type activities

I tried a different method of helping him count, by having him write the number in each box. This won’t work every time, but he seemed to like it this week.

Storytime

We read the mini French books during the week. I am getting him to read the small words that he knows, like ‘le’ and ‘la’. He is very proud of himself for reading them.

Activity

Objects floating in water experiment – I had forgotten just how many skills this experiment teaches; cutting with scissors, forming a hypothesis, and then writing down the results. He did a great job cutting, he had no trouble formulating the hypotheses (although I’m not sure that he thought very hard about it), and then remembered what the results were in order to mark them down on the paper. He was a little upset that he got so many of them wrong, but I told him that experiments are more often about getting the wrong answer and then explaining why. That helped.

Star gazing – We learned about the planets (he is very enthusiastic about telling everyone that there are four gas giants in the solar system) and he coloured them in (sort of) to make a book. (He cut the pages using my paper cutter because it is SO MUCH FASTER than using scissors.) We chose to use the telescope on Saturday (the benefits of not being constrained to school hours). We went out to the park nearby our house because the moon was too low to look at from our house. We tried to find Saturn, and managed it, but when we tried to magnify, we lost sight of it. Pegasus and Dragon were both very excited to see the moon through the telescope, but they were very bored of how long it took to fiddle with it in order to see the moon properly.

Bake with coconut – He didn’t want to get his hands dirty, but we talked about fractions in cups, and he was very excited about the idea nad seemed to catch on at the end that a quarter cup would fit twice into a half cup and two half cups would fit twice into a whole cup. He really enjoys dumping things and measuring things, but not so much touching things with his hands, so he did a lot of the chocolate dunking with a fork and it worked well.

I was a little nervous about this week. I hadn’t watched the French version of this movie before, plus Pegasus had said that he didn”t like any of the previous activities on Saturday (but then he did on Sunday, so…) Anyways, the week went very well.

Dance

I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted.

Music

This week, we’ve been focussing mostly on him practising his scales on the piano. He needs to build up his finger strength, especially in his baby fingers, before my mom can teach him properly. He also needs to be more familiar with the names of the keys, which I continued teaching him, both forward and backward. (repeated from last week)

Crochet

I helped him do several blocks of stitches… probably about 4 inches. He’s excited to be able to wear it, but there’s still so much left to do.

Basic Information

We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). He sang along unprompted.

Printing words

He has been improving slowly. I like that I don’t have to fight him to get him to do it.

Counting objects/math-type activities

He wanted me to move the pencil, but was willing to try a different direction for the movement. He needs work on remembering that sept comes after six.

Storytime

We read the mini French books during the week.

Activity

Sewing a button – this was the activity he was most excited about, which I found strange until he mentioned that they use Dragon’s sewn button as a buzzer in their games. So now he has one too. He did very well. (I held the button so that he wouldn’t stab himself.)

Play charades – I was a little concerned about this one, because he can’t read yet. But I had a thought the night before and it worked perfectly. I pulled up a random animal generator on my phone that did 8 animals at a time. I told him to scroll through them until he found one that he knew, and then act it out. He keeps asking to do it again, so I’m going to call this one a win, especially once he caught on that he couldn’t switch his animal to be whatever I said first lol

Nature walk – We did this on Friday, which was a PD Day, so Dragon accompanied us. She also let Pegasus borrow her camera, which worked well. The only problem was that he was more interested in looking around and walking than in taking pictures. I did manage to convince him to take a couple. We took a very similar route to the one I did for Dragon, but I had a little surprise for them, leading them onto Carlington Hill. The climb was worth it.

Pegasus’s pictures:

Despite my struggles at the beginning of the week (con-drain is all too real), this week went well.

Dance

I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted.

Music

This week, we’ve been focussing mostly on him practising his scales on the piano. He needs to build up his finger strength, especially in his baby fingers, before my mom can teach him properly. He also needs to be more familiar with the names of the keys, which I continued teaching him, both forward and backward.

Crochet

I helped him do several blocks of stitches… probably about 6 inches. He’s excited to be able to wear it, but there’s still so much left to do.

Basic Information

We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). I suggested he sing along, which he was happy to attempt.

Printing words

The pencil grip is helping immensely, especially now that I’ve noticed that it was on the pencil upside down. He didn’t struggle with the printing words and I’m very proud of him for trying so hard.

Counting objects/math-type activities

He moved the pencil himself, but he kept losing track of what number he was on (Monday). On Wednesday when he did the second sheet, he wanted me to move the pencil.

Storytime

We went to the library on Monday and picked up 3 mini French books, which we read during the week.

Activity

Bake bread – I’m going to call this a complete success. We used this bread-in-a-bag recipe, and it worked perfectly. Everyone wanted a second piece. Pegasus wasn’t really strong enough to knead it, but he had fun punching it.

Make butterfly (akuma) bookmarks – we used construction paper, which is a little thicker than what is recommended, but still functions quite well. I liked this activity, because even though he needed to refold several times, or he didn’t quite get the fold in the right place, it still turned out looking like what it was supposed to.

Design a superhero costume and kwami – I was hoping that he would slow down and really think about what he wanted to design for his superhero costume, but he really didn’t. He always thinks of colouring and drawing as if it’s a race against time and it makes me sad.