Supplementing FLL1, Lessons 21-30

A continuation of what we did to teach lessons from First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind: Level 1 in a kinetic way. (Click here for my post about the previous ten lessons.)

Learning our address (Lesson 21, 29)

   Learning this importing information was not clicking just looking and saying it, so I made another index card set. Builder Boy remembers the name of our town and our state, and understands that our house has a special number and our street has a name, but he couldn't put it together. So I drew pictures of a house, a street, a town, and our state. On the other side of the cards I wrote [house], [street], [town], and [house] in different colored marker. Then on separate cards I wrote our house number, our street name, our town name, and our state name (FLL1 recommends you write out the full name of the state at first. The zip code is not used in lesson 21, but is introduced in lesson 29.) I showed him the cards picture side first in a 2x2 grid. I showed him the house first, then the street, then the town, then the state, showing how the parts of the address gets bigger and bigger. Then we flipped them over and looked at the words. Then I gave him our address parts (not in order) and had him match those parts up with the words. It turned out well and he said that he "got it."

   I always love playing "post office" with my siblings as a kid, so I thought this would be a good time to play it with the boys. I looked at the boxes I have (I save a lot of boxes for future projects) and after messing around a bit I figured out the simplest mailbox I could make would be out of paper. (Click here for my post on how to make the mailbox.) I made addresses in a way that demonstrated the "bigger, bigger, bigger" concept of addresses. I made up a number for each of the three mailboxes. The street name was replaced with the room the box was in, the town name was replaced with "Our House," and the state name was replaced with the name of our apartment complex. Builder Boy had a blast making letters and cards for everyone, and we put the "addresses" on all of them. I only had him write the name of the person it was for and the number and I wrote the rest. Ahead of time I wrote letters, cards, and wrapped small presents for the boys. Builder Boy wanted to know why Early Bird and he did not have separate boxes. I explained to him that they both "lived" in their bedroom and that people don't have separate mailboxes in real life and that was why it was important to have the names on the envelopes as well as the rest of the address.

Hearts Are Like Doors poem (Lesson 27)
 We know a few signs thanks to Signing Time and two great sites online, so we worked out signs and hand motions for this poem. Blue words in the descriptions are linked to that sign on an awesome, free website that has videos of the signs. All hand motions are official ASL signs, though we do "open" bigger and "key" we use the finger tip instead of the knuckle. The descriptions in blue are official, the black/gray is our own interpretation.

Hearts Are Like Doors, by Anonymous

Hearts, like doors, will open with ease, touch your heart, sign open door

To very, very, little keys, show a tiny amount with your fingers, twist a finger on the palm of your other hand (held vertical)

And don't forget that two of these swipe your hand over your forehead, show two fingers

Are "Thank you, sir" and "If you please!" sign "thank you" by touching your chin with your hand, then bringing it down and away from you, rub the palm of your hand in a circle over your chest for please

Enrichment Activity (Lesson 30)
   The Enrichment Activity for lesson 30 has your child drawing a picture of things in a room, and then labeling them. I had saved a bunch of mailer adds so that we could cut out pictures of people, places, and things and make a sorted collage with them. But Builder Boy was adamantly not interested, and instead asked to draw a person, place, and thing instead.

(Added 10/15) We did the collage! As I was preparing the paper to have different background colors for easier sorting, Builder Boy decided he wanted the "Things" area to be a full page, so we did that; it is too long for the scanner to get all of it, but there are more things than just a computer.

(The furniture set represents a bedroom as a place.)

  *Click here for my post about the next 10 lessons.* ___________________________________________________________________________________ The original link takes you to the author's printing press online store. The picture is a link to the Amazon.com page. All extras ideas are my own, and I don't get paid for reviews.

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