language arts for clara

The photo above has nothing to do with this post in particular... I just wanted to post it :-)

I hadn't really planned much in the language arts department for Clara this year.  The program I use for Alex doesn't officially begin as its own subject until second grade (prior to that, it's combined with their reading program which we don't use).  So, I figured that I would just wait until then.  Clara had other plans though.  She is insisting on being at the table... working... for the entire time Alex is working.  This means I've had to do some scrambling to find her work to do that has benefit and isn't just busy work.

She's been doing the Explode the Code workbooks.  Honestly, I could take or leave them.  I don't mind them, but I, personally, have not seen any great benefit from using them.  They both enjoy them, so we keep doing them... I'm sure they don't hurt anything.

I had originally started her in Sequential Spelling with Alex... but that went downhill fast.  It is grade appropriate for her and for Alex BUT given their grade differences... even though she was hanging in there, she wasn't doing as well at it as Alex so things got ugly.  I continued with Alex and stopped with her.  I was just going to take some time off and then start the book again with her later in the year.  Again, she had other ideas.  She wanted a spelling program of her own.  So, she's working her way through the word lists in the McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book.  I actually downloaded it for free here.  It's not a fancy program for her, but so far so good.  She actually works on her small white board when we do spelling.  I've got the itch to add something like the Evan Moor Daily Spelling Skills book.  I'm not sure about that yet though.

Something I did just add is this...

Evan Moor's Daily Language Review for First Grade

She was intrigued by Alex's Daily Paragraph Editing book, so thought I would find her a "daily" book too.  We just started it last week, but so far so good.  She likes having her daily sheet to do too, like Alex.  The daily assignments are short and I use them as more of a brief little language lesson rather than an assignment to do on her own.

Starting this week, I'm adding more writing for both of them.  I haven't worked out the details of my plan yet though.  I've always had them do oral narrations on what they've read or something we've read aloud... but I had avoided having them write out their narration.  Today they wrote.  Alex was on his own.  Clara gave her narration to me orally and I typed it up in Startwrite for her to trace.  Soon, I'll type it up for her to copy instead.

Not a huge amount of stuff that we have going on for LA with Clara.... but it sure is different than what I had in mind just a couple of months ago!  :-)