Saturday, April 22, 2023

Saturday, April 22, 2023 

  I slept well, very well. I went to bed early, woke after six, and could have stayed longer. Elsa waited for me to come around to the other side of the bed to apply tea tree oil to her remaining lesions. She is doing incredibly well. Did the vet do something behind my back, or did my commitment to bathing her more frequently make a difference? I've only held to my promise twice so far. I should keep doing it. Will I? We'll see.

  I signed on at 9 a.m. for a Zoom session with Mama K's crew. There was no response, so I called. Mama K said she was heading home to get the kids online. Mama K usually sleeps in on Saturday mornings. 

  It was a disappointing session with all three kids. Fourth-grade K wasn't interested. He spent the time examining his face in his video image. I got something out of him, but not much. I had both girls, Twin A and Twin E, read the same selection they read in the last session. Neither showed much improvement. Twin E didn't slip backward. That was a significant deal.

  Kindergarten Steven loves math and astronomy and hates reading. This six-year-old boy, doing fourth-grade math, argues that he doesn't have to learn to read; he can learn whatever he needs from YouTube. Good luck! Using the Phonics Discovery System, I got him started decoding. He and his mom play games using the approach. Last night, I conceived a way for him to drill the sight words that might be fun for him.

  It's a sorting activity with some review with Mom of what the words are as a refresher. Mom bought a deck of fifty sight word cards.  

  Suggestions for studying sight words:

 Sorting activity coordinated with math.

 1. Have him sort the cards by as many categories as you or he can think of.

     a. First letter. All words starting with a, b, c, etc.

     b. If the letter is present in the word. Is the letter any place in the word?

For Steven, relating the activity to math.

2. Which letter is used the most. Which the least.

3. Greater than/less than:: more a than e; a>e 

4. Fractional of the whole? Out of ten cards, the letter appears in 4 out of 10 words. 4/10; 2/5

  Objective:

    Even if he doesn't read the words, he keeps his eyes on them and observes spelling patterns. 

 Modified Sight word drill:

   You show him the card, but DO NOT ask him to tell you the word:  

  Tell him he doesn't have to tell you if he got the word correctly. We do want him to do a mental word search. He may only know for sure after you tell him what it is.

He has to signal to you that he wants you to move on. Do not ask him if he got the word correctly or had any other word in mind.  

  When he signals to move on, you tell him the word. 

Then, move to the next card.

You could combine this activity with a physical action. After you show him the card, he runs around the yard from one point to the next. When he reaches the second point, he tells you if he knows the word by hearing it in his head. Too much activity may be counterproductive. But you have nothing to lose since he won't cooperate anyway.

 Objective: If nothing else, he will become aware of whether a word comes to mind. It's metacognitive activity.

   Because he has to report if it comes to mind, he has to mentally search to see if it's there. This is also a metacognitive activity.

  The first of my favorite Saturday NPR shows came at 2 p.m. The Moth Radio Hour, then the TED Radio Hour, and finally, Selected Shorts, where short stories are read by performers. I listened to one of those shows while I bathed Elsa. Bathing her is such a pain because I have to leave a medicinal soap on her for at least ten minutes. She's miserable; that makes me sad. The poor dog shakes the whole time. Lutz tells me warm water is the solution. If it's warm enough, the dogs don't shake. Great! How do I keep an application of soap warm for ten minutes? This stumped even Lutz. 

  My scale has been moving in the wrong direction dramatically. I started having ramen soup every morning—that's 350 calories. I also started eating a fruit salad of apples or papayas, bananas, blueberries, cashew yogurt, and granola. It's absolutely delicious. Too much?

   Yesterday, I went without any Hersey's milk chocolate nuggets with almonds—not one. I survived. Today, I had eight. Well, that's better than a whole 10-oz bag.

  Elsa and I went to visit Paulette and get Kangen water refills. Again, I let Elsa out of the car at the bottom of the long driveway. No, not at the very bottom, about a fifth of the way up. I wanted to get her away from the road where cars might pass. Again, she waited before she took off. She took off when I opened the car door to check where she was. What a blast watching her run up that driveway to Paulette's door. Seeing her so happy is a treat.

  Paulette and I sat on a two-seater gliding bench and talked as always. Among other things, I proposed some activities she might do to help Leon move on with his reading. I don't think she responded to it. She told me things she was doing. They were great but didn't address his need to improve his reading. You can't make people do things that make no sense to them.

  Tonight, I had the other half of the salmon steak I broiled last night with a salad. After dinner, I watch Ticket to Paradise with George Clooney and Julia Roberts. It was a silly rom-com. I can't for the life of me figure out why these actors would bother to do such a film. Maybe no one is offering them good roles anymore. Do they need the money or miss the activity of acting? The movie was set in Bali. The scenery was spectacular. Maybe they wanted a paid vacation. I wonder if they took their families with them.