at home reading tutoring part 25

Last Monday, SJ had his last reading tutoring session with Mrs. Banks.  We are going to continue over the summer.  Since today is Memorial Day (no school) and next Monday is the last week of school, we opted for this to his last session for the school year. 

He had an excellent session.  She said he worked very hard for her.  She started out the session with a story on Cinco de Mayo.  It was called "Una Fiesta!", which she told SJ meant the party in Spanish.  Although it had many pages, there was very little verbiage on each page.  "I like this kind of story," he told Mrs. Banks.  It was an informational story about parties that happen on Cinco de Mayo. There weren't any questions to answer, so that made SJ like the story even more!

Next, they read another story about Cinco de Mayo.  It was titled "Cinco de Mayo", which she told SJ meant the fifth of May.  He was also excited about this story.  He had done his library project on Mexico.  Again, there weren't any questions to answer, so SJ was very pleased.  In the story, it tells us the battle between the Mexicans and French armies occurred in 1862.  SJ wanted to do the math to find out how long ago this war was.  He calculated that it was 151 years ago.  Great math work, SJ!

Then, she had him fill in words for a Mad Lib style story.  These are his words.

 

name of someone in your class   Jacob

noun-item of clothing    pants

adverb    excitedly

noun    Fiesta

verb, past tense    danced

color    orange

different color    yellow

noun-a vegetable    lettuce

adjective    happy

verb    sing

adjective    glad

adjective    confused

noun    fireworks

verb, past tense    watched

verb, past tense    sang

noun    carnival

verb    whittle

noun, internal organ    stomach

a flavor    vanilla

adjective    mad

Here is his story with his words inserted into it.  It was entitled "The Mexican Fiesta".

My friend Jacob invited me to a Mexican fiesta.  "Do I have to wear pants?" I asked excitedly.
My friend said that it wasn't a requirement.  All I needed to bring was my fiesta!
I danced over the salsa bar.  This fiesta had orange and yellow lettuce chips and five kinds of salsa!  I tried mango salsa, black bean salsa, and a happy salsa that made my eyes sing.  Then I found the glad guacamole dip and tried some of that.  It was delicious!  I wanted to marry the fajita station!  There were stacks of hot soft tortillas.  I could have filled my tortillas with steaming beef, chicken, or shrimp, but I chose to make a vegetarian fajita.  First, I put grilled peppers and sauteed onions down the center of the tortilla.  Then I spread some black beans on top.  I added a confused amount of shredded fireworks, and then my friend dared me to include some jalapeno slices, so I did!  I rolled up the tortilla and watched into it.  Then I sang to the drink station!
The carnival had some Mexican soft drinks.  I tried one called tamarindo.  It is some kind of sweet but tart fruit.  Senora Ortega told me that it's the second most popular flavor of soft drink in Mexico.  Some other flavors are pineapple, fruit punch, and hibiscus.  Isn't that last one a flower?  I was afraid to whittle it!
I saved room in my stomach for dessert.  The dessert bar had flan with caramel poured over it.  It had sopapillas with a choice of honey or chocolate for drizzling.  It had vanilla churros.  I tasted some of everything.  My mouth was very happy, but my stomach complained.  It was too mad!
When is the next fiesta?  I hope I'm invited!

Next, she had SJ work on analogies.  She said he had some trouble with the analogies, but they were mainly words he didn't know.  For example:  fiesta: party :: siesta: ________.  His choices were nap, holiday, departure and party.  He didn't know what a siesta was, but was able to answer the analogy after Mrs. Banks explained what a siesta was. 

The last thing they did was a glyph on Cinco de Mayo.  SJ had to color the girls' hair black (he does not celebrate his birthday in the same month as Cinco de Mayo), the color of the girls' clothing green (he likes green best on the Mexican flag), the color of the boys' hair brown (he had never been to Mexico), the color of the boys' clothing green (if his school was having a Cinco de Mayo party, he would like to hit a pinata), to draw and color a maraca in the boy's left hand (he argued with Mrs. Banks that he could not explain why Cinco de Mayo was celebrated), to draw and color a guitar in the other boy's right hand (it is purple, because he cannot speak Spanish) and what to color the title (green-he down not like Mexican food at all).  See the finished glyph.