Language Arts in the New Year

My long time readers know that Little Bean is currently obsessed with the Magic Tree House series. His obsession has slowed down a bit in the last month or so...previously he would actually categorize all his Tree House books by number and organize them in his red backpack, which was his constant companion--literally. He took it everywhere from the swing set to the dinner table, it did not leave his side, and all his Tree House books were in order inside. Nowadays, while he is still reading them daily and writing down facts from them often, he does not carry them around as much and hasn't been so careful about the numerical order.

One of the things the experts suggest is finding ways to integrate the special interests of Autistic children into their school day. Actually, I think this is very sound advice whether your child is completely neuro-typical or not; and it's exactly what I am attempting to do this coming year.

For Christmas, I asked for this book, titled Teaching With Favorite Magic Tree House books. It runs for about $8.00 dollars on Amazon and is packed with Language Arts, History, Math, Science and Art ideas for children in the 2nd through 4th grades. Course, Little Bean is only in 1st--technically--but since he is reading way above grade level, and because the activities are highly adaptable, I am able to use this book with him pretty well. I will be continuing with our normal curriculum as well, but will be probably abandoning our phonics program altogether in favor of this book instead, since he is pretty much reading fluently and phonics is not longer a concern of mine with him.

Yesterday we made up our own Magic Tree House book covers (title and illustration) and today we wrote the first 4-sentence draft to match our book cover. I'm also having him read me a chapter a day to assess his reading level, comprehension and vocabulary skills. From there, I'll glean vocabulary words and ask comprehension questions based on the text. So far, I'm thinking this was a very good idea. It was nice to see a big smile on his face during school today. :)