The Hobbit

Jeff started reading The Hobbit to P as a bedtime story. They started on Friday, and have read a little bit each day since. P seems very into the book, and wants to know what is going to happen today now that they've arrived in Rivendale (Chapter 3).

Egypt, Snow White, and vocabulary

Read E.H. Gombrich's A Little History of the World, Chapter 3: "The Land Beside The Nile"; discussed mummies, pyramids, hieroglyphics, pharoahs, and obelisks.

P read Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (the read-along book than comes with the tape). We worked on his slowing down and enunciating, and discussed how reading silently to ourselves can often occur faster than reading aloud (he was skipping words when reading, because they weren't germaine to the story. Showed great skill at faster reading for himself.).

Discussed some words from Snow White that he didn't know, including: linen, ebony, rage, banished, vain, wept, and chasm.

Glaciers, Ice Age, Tools

Read E.H. Gombrich's A Little History of the World, Chapter 2: "The Greatest Inventors of All Time"

Discussed Ice Age using a glacial extent map and talked about glacier safety, using lines, picks, etc. Learned word "crevasse" and meaning. Briefly talked about copper and bronze age tools.

Brief Summary

• Read Chapter 1 of E.H. Gombrich's A Little History of the World: "Once Upon A Time".
• Read "It's Mine", a fable by Leo Lionni.
• Read and acted out "What Animals Do", by Richard Scarry.
• Read "It was a dark and storm night" preface to the Donkey Kong Country instruction booklet.
• P read to us, "Catch Me If You Can!" by Bernard Most (A Green Light Reader, Level 2: Grades 1-2)
• P read first 7 pages of Walt Disney's Peter Pan (this is not a summary Peter Pan book).
• Listened to Books On Tape: It's a Small World, 101 Dalmations, Peter Pan.

International Astronomy Day

Following the air show, we went to the planetarium in honor of International Astronomy Day. We got to see a solar telescope and watch a show entitled "Zula Patrol: Under the Weather" that talked about weather and how weather systems on Earth can be found on other planets in the solar system.

Neighborhood Gopher Tortoise

In the middle of the day we came across a gopher tortoise in the neighborhood. We watched how it pulls into its shell, how it walks, how fast it can go, and talked about what it eats. We also learned from the neighbors that this tortoise has been coming to the neighborhood for years! We tried to run home and get something to feed it, but it was gone before we came back.

Measuring Differences

P demonstrated knowledge of different volume measuring sizes today - cup versus gallon, teaspoon versus cup, etc., and which ones were larger than others.