Teaching Notes:
Although the workbooks are designed for independence, there’s a limit to this with seven-year-olds in mind! In the beginning, in particular, there is a LOT of written instruction in the lesson that they will almost certainly need help wading through. The curriculum becomes more and more independent as the student moves through.
There is a little leaf emblem which indicates that the subject is NEW and might need a little extra teaching help from you, and a green apple which means even an independent, motivated student needs your help (to administer a spelling test, etc.).
Today the student is learning how we do vocabulary acquisition, and that’s really a big subject. It might even be necessary to break today’s lesson into two days. Help the student make a list of words as he or she reads the story, help them discern when to look things up right away and when to wait, help them make their additions to their vocabulary book… and make sure this habit continues through the coming days until it’s… a habit!
Today we also introduce a simple game. All you need is to cut out the cards, a timer (a computer works fine, Google “timer”), and take a couple of minutes to practice this every day until the end of the unit.
Tomorrow: You’re going to need to My Book of Characters Minibook, so you might want to assemble that (it’s in the appendix of the Unit 1 Workbook, or you can download it right here).