Playing catch up

I've been so tired lately I haven't made time to write updates on my teaching antics. I have stories to tell (although they may not be terribly interesting), believe me.

My twin girls are repeat pupils now (three visits in as many weeks), and apparently spent the first week asking their Nana if they could come to my "class" after school every day. The second week I copied pages out of the Scholastic book to see what basic level they are at. The pages included simple mazes, following easy words: "the" "a", to reach something at the other side (the way mazes do). Then they each read part of a Hello Reader story to me. T was soon tired, but M wanted to go on. She read almost a whole story and then answered some of the questions at the end (that included rebus words and opposites). At the end of the evening Nana asked me to work with them on word families, which I am happy to try. She told me that they have been put in some sort of special class in first grade, which seems ridiculous to me. They are six years old!

So I spent much of last Monday writing simple sentences around the word family "an", and copying a few more pages about "the" and "an" from my reference book. The girls told me that the part where they had to match the right word to the right sentence was too hard. But I helped them to complete the whole page (six sentences) and they did okay.

T was tired and coughing the whole time on Monday, and I sent her home with Nana to get some medicine. I feel for them because I know that it's not my business to interfere in their lives outside of learning to read and being at the House with us. But they come wearing dirty clothes and I understand that they are on fairly strict vegetarian diets, which seems a little rough for children so young. And frankly I imagine it will backfire on them in the future. How can chocolate and sweet things not be attractive to them? Anyway, I digress.

So I started reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with them, but now I'm thinking that might be cruel. Perhaps I should go with something shorter and less about sweeties.