December school

Preston is continuing to enjoy school.  One thing that is a huge part of first grade for us is the telling of fairy tales.  I believe that the archetypal symbols in fairy tales are important for young children, and that they really relate to them.  So each week during this language arts unit, I tell a new fairy tale that forms the basis for our learning for that week.  Story time is Preston's favorite part of school, and every day he asks if we are going to have a story and if it can be the *first* thing we do.  (Usually it's last--I like to use it as a bit of bait to get him through the other parts of school.)  We did have one fairy tale that proved to be a bit of a disaster.  I learned that Hansel and Gretel was too scary for him, which was proven when he ran from the table in the middle of it and refused to hear the rest.  Lesson learned!  I didn't try to force the issue, and before the next morning I'd looked through and chosen a different story, The Fishermen and His Wife, which Preston much preferred.  This meant that I am now having to go through all the tales I'd chosen and make sure they are mild enough for him.  So this week, instead of telling Snow White like I'd originally planned, we did one called The Four Skillful Brothers.  It's kind of obscure, but he really liked it!  The only thing he did not like was that there was a dragon who got punished for kidnapping a princess, and he really doesn't like the "bad" characters to be punished.  There was a tailor in the story, and Preston thought that the tailor should have sewed the dragon back together.

Every day Preston has insisted on getting out our little table top puppets and telling this story over again.  He even insists that we turn out the lights and have a candle going.  It is so sweet.  I can tell that he is working this story over and over in his mind.  During his recorder lesson, he wanted to play me a song, which I could not identify.  He then proceeded to sing to me an entire song he'd made up about this poor dragon.

Preston is really a particular little guy; he likes things just so.  Each week after we introduce a few letters, we form them from modeling beeswax and stick them on the wall.  Today he got upset that I hadn't been putting them in alphabetical order (since we haven't been learning them in alphabetical order).  So I appeased him by rearranging them in the proper order, leaving gaps for the missing letters.

He also loves his food.  I had to chuckle the other day when he wanted to tell the story.  I asked him what he needed for the story, and he proceeded to tell me all the little puppets and figures we would need to collect, "and the candle.... and a bowl of oatmeal."  I have learned that it is pointless to start our school without making him a snack first.