O'Neill TS # 7

This past Wednesday I tutored my child tutee Rina Oh. Noticing that last tutoring session didn't go as planned, I made sure this one would have an equal balance of fun and study time. This time I decided to provide my own material, previously it had been her parents providing material whether it had been her homework or a book of her choice. The great part about providing material for her is that she loves art and art history. This is very exciting for me since I am an art major and have minored in art history. The room in which we study has pictures of famous paintings on the walls. So for this session I decided to bring in a kid's article on the artist's biography on one of the paintings.
We started the session with crossword puzzles and coloring. I let her know that we would have some time for fun but also time for reading. While we colored, I asked her questions and tried to work on her spoken English. Once we were done, I brought out the reading and pointed to the painting on the wall and told her we were discussing the artist's biography. She got excited, and to further her excitement, I made sure to ask her questions during the reading. Her favorite part was figuring out how long ago the artist Jan Van Eyck was born. (It was about 735 years ago) she was amazed. Since she has a short attention span, she was tired after the first page. She wanted me to read the rest, but I did not give in. We made an agreement on which parts we would read, and before we knew it, she was done. I did want to show her a video about the painting, but decided to instead watch the video myself since I knew it would have been too boring for her. So I brought in the information I had learned and asked her to point out parts of the painting and tell me why she thought the artist made those choices. I taught her a bit about the symbolism of dogs and fidelity, and gave her further information on the painting. I believe we both had a great time, and I plan to continue using this method. She also plays the violin, so I plan on bringing in some information on musicians and music as well.