Fellini 4th Grade Evidence Blog

“Nothing like ADHD and a good fight to the death to make time fly.”
Rick Riordan

Year Review

What an absolutely glorious year! Fellini had an eventful 4th-grade year, to say the least. He started the year with a European vacation to his favorite places from ancient history. He visited the Parthenon in Athens and the Coliseum in Rome! He also visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, London to see some of the Harry Potter filming locations in real life, and went to the Effiel Tower in Paris. He’s become quite the little traveler.  He ended the year with his first promotion in KungFu, following in the footsteps of his father. He also had a long-needed and essential psychoeducational evaluation where he was finally, officially, diagnosed with Dyslexia and ADHD. He has also blossomed as a social butterfly, he loves being around other people, especially family. He enjoys playing Minecraft, Xbox and Roblox. He loves watching The Amazing World of Gumbal, One Piece, and Naruto. His favorite author is Rick Riordan and he listens to the Percy Jackson books on repeat.

Subjects

Here is a list of subjects we taught this school year. Click on the button to take you to the subject and the grey arrow to bring you back.

Mathematics Language Arts History Geography
Foreign Language Science Music Art

Mathematics

Fellini is using Teaching Textbooks Math 3 this year. We also supplemented Multiplication practice throughout the year with the help of Multiplication in 7 days, Mr. DeMaio multiplication songs, and right start multiplication games. Per the recommendation of his evaluating Psychologist, we also jumped back into Xtra Math for repetition. Because of his working memory issues, we need to make repetition an essential element of his learning pathway.

We also did a really rad geometry project-based learning assignment.

Language Arts

It was an FLVS type of year for us. I needed a curriculum that was challenging and kept us on a schedule. FLVS is perfect for this. I saw his writing ability (essay, idea formation, transition words, etc) vastly improve! Instead of having him hand write or type everything, we used an iPad with text-to-speech so he could get his ideas out without the handicap he faces in physical writing. His essays from the start of the year vs his essays at the end of the year show stellar progress. He learned opinion, narrative, research, and compare/contrast essay writing. He also had the added benefit of taking weekly quizzes and tests. I personally believe test-taking is a skill and welcome it to an extent.  He has working memory issues so the exams were definitely tough for him. It’s a skill we’re going to continue to work on, but not place too much emphasis on it.  I’m very proud of his progress so far.

We took a break from spelling during the school year in order to concentrate on the FLVS curriculum but jumped back into spelling and handwriting this summer. He went back to All About Spelling an Orton-Gillingham Method that’s helpful for dyslexic students. He also has daily writing prompts. He can write about anything as long as it’s three sentences, handwritten, and has some level of complexity.

His reading this year was through FLVS, audiobooks and a few books we read together Like The Boy and His Horse by C.S. Lewis. We are also working on reading his DnD books to incorporate reading that he’s more interested in. So far he’s more engaged than when we read Wings of Fire, The Horse and His Boy, or Rick Riordan books. Especially the Monster DnD guide! He’s usually pretty excited to read it.  He gets fatigued but he works through those big complex words with lots of success. I keep telling him that the more he reads, the better he’ll get and the less fatigued he’ll be…but you know, he’s ten and doesn’t believe me.

History

Finished STOW Vol. 3 this year. Here is an example of him creating in Minecraft. It was a fun time for him. He’d listen to the audiobook and work on creating the assignment. Later I would give him oral quizzes.

A HUGE part of his history lessons this year was all the traveling he did. One specific place of mention was the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. We went and traveled back in time to war-torn Amsterdam and spent some time inside the hidden annex. What a tragic tale but what an important part of history. He also made it to The Globe Theater in London, the Coliseum in Rome, the old senate (where Julius Caeser died!), the ancient town of Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius, and the Parthenon in Athens.

Because of his love for the Percy Jackson series, he knew many of the myths from ancient Greece and Rome and even knew the significance of SPQR, Senātus Populusque Rōmānus, a signifier of ancient Rome. There are more pics in the geography section.

Geography

Geography/History this year was literally traveling the world! He went to France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, and Greece. He’s turned into quite the little traveler.  Here are some of the pictures from our adventures around the world.

Foreign Language

Fellini started off this year with sign language then switched back to Japanese. It’s through the same teacher as Yesenia. Mayuko Guidi. She is a native Japanese speaker and has a BA in linguistics from Japan.

Science

Deering Estate Ecoexplorers Academy was again part of our science curriculum this year. We incorporated some experimentation and engineering in little projects throughout the year.


We went back to Surf Science again for some fun marine-movement-based science class.

Music

We went for drumming lessons at Wynwood School of Music and then switched to drums at home.

Art

Fellini took art on FLVS for the first part of the year before deciding he wasn’t into it anymore. He made some cool little projects though!