Day 5

Friday, July 20

All Present

We continued our read aloud of Dr. Seuss. Warm-up activtiy with word sounds: passing the sound around the circle ("zzzz" "p" etc.) Articuklation exercises: "Whether" and:

A Tutor who tooted the flute tried to tutor two tooters to toot. Said the two to the tutor "Is it harder to toot or to tutor two tooters to toot?" (Focus on the distinction between the "liquid u" as in "tutor" and the straight "oo" as in "toot")

Cecily sells sea shells by the sea shore where the sun shines on the shop signs. (Get off your "s". Use this to control splashing sibilant sounds.)

We discussed the important of control the breath in certain plosive sounds such as "p" especially when working with a microphoone. Use "Peter Piper" for this purpose!

Brenda continued work on "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut". Note the choice to emphasize the pronoun or the verb: "I" vs. "read". In general, emphasize the action words.

Sandy read "Are You My Mother?" and "Gertrude McFuzz" 2 stories about bird adventures! We discussed the idea of "fresh thought", speaking the words as if you were just thinking of them, as when Gertrude asks her uncle if there is a...pill of some kind to help her.

Saundra read "Cat In The Hat". We discussed the surprise of a fish talking - the historic tension between fish and cat. Saundra extended the "sh" sound in "fish" in the line "up, up, up with a fish" to great and sinister effect. Word sounds enhance connotative meaning, but also have an entertainment value of their own.The short, clipped words such as "cat" and "hat" gave a stacatto quality to the reading, whereas open, ongoing sounds as in "down" let out the emotion of the moment in "put me down!" In general, consonants carry intellectual value (meaning) and vowels open up emotions (feeling).

Josh gave us "The Sleep Book" with a sense oif the fresh thoughts: "The news is just in..." We worked the "Horn Honker" sequence to get the distinction of words. Note the effective use of specific information such as the number of sleepers.