L my little reader

L is now loving to read. I think she must have 60+ books checked out right now.  I found her tonight in her room reading in the dark.  :)  Too cute.  She even read the first two paragraphs of Little House in the Big Woods by herself.  It's so fun to see her so excited to read. It's been a long road to get here but it's finally here. It's also nice to be able to show her where all her hard work has gotten her.

1/4/13: Foot, School, & Therapy

I left the house for the first time since i hurt my foot. it's my driving foot but it did okay. I still have massive bruising and some swelling and soreness so I just think it's going to take a long time to heal. After 20 years of acrylics, I got a manicure and gel polish tonight. Hoping it will last as nice as the pink and whites. :) The kids were funny about it though. Elodie said "but I like the pink and white" and Callen came running, pointing to his finger saying "pink pink pink," like where's the pink mom? Too cute.

Today, Elodie took four more MUS math tests for chapters 2-5 and got 100% on all of them. I'm wondering how many chapters she'll test out of just from doing MUS Primer before Alpha (Primer is the kindergarten math and Alpha is the 1st grade math). I think I'll just keep testing her until she gets one wrong and then we'll start with that chapter.

Elodie's reading is progressing nicely as well. She's now reading through the Bob Books First Grade books. She sounds things out quite well and usually has no trouble with whatever reading she has to do for MFW Kindergarten. She also enjoys the read-alouds we do.

Callen's therapy sessions started back yesterday after a two week break. He did really well for both sessions. Sara got him to touch and push a cucumber around on his tray, which was great since before he threw two tantrums just because I put a cucumber slice on his tray. We also got him to kiss it goodbye. Mandy confirmed that he's catching up with his words. He's now on par with an average 2 year old, but he's 2 years old and four months, so that means he's about four months behind on his speech. An average two and an half year old will have 300 words so the average child's words would explode after two. Plus, an average two year old would be speaking in almost all two-word sentences, which Callen's not quite there yet, but he's definitely getting there. We're really pleased with his progress and he does even more for Mandy than he'll do for us (which she says is totally normal since he's in speech mode when he's with her and he only has to be "on" for an hour with her, whereas with us, he has to be "on" all the time). She also said he just hasn't made all those brain pathways yet that are messed up with him. So we're just trying to get him to say as much as we can. I kid you not, he has a new word every day!

Here's some other words he's saying that I don't think I had on his previous list: Let go!; Hey!; boon (spoon); sauce; piggy sauce; piggy no moo (he wanted the Dave's BBQ Sauce, not the Bull's Eye BBQ sauce; Dave's has a pig on it and Bull's Eye has a bull on it).

1/24/12: C ate 1/2 of a PB&J!

For lunch today, Callen ate a quarter of Elodie's PB&J and then a quarter of mine. My little boy ate half of a PB&J all by himself!

Yesterday, Elodie tried to video chat Katie but it didn't go through so she said she was going to type Katie instead. She wanted to type a sentence so she got her sight words' list and picked out three words to make a sentence all by herself. Then she typed those words and hit send. She typed, "She can jump." I was *so* proud!

We also did what we call our God book ("Leading Little Ones to God") while we were waiting at the allergist. The story was about Elijah and the woman with little bread and oil. I wasn't really sure Elodie was paying attention when I read because there are lots of distractions at a doctor's office, but at the end of the story when I asked the comprehension questions, she rattled off all the answers. I was impressed! Then the nurse said my time was up and Elodie told her, "just a little prayer first!" so we did our ending prayer before the nurse checked my arms. :) *Beaming mama!*

1/16/12: L sayings and schooling

This morning L had a total meltdown and was sent into a time out. There, I could hear her crying, "I'm separated from God!!" and then, "I want God. I want God. I want God." I guess that lesson about sin last week is sinking in.

After that she kept crying and screaming "I'm scared" and she was trembling in fear. It took me a LONG time to calm her down. There was much explanation that goblins and ghosts are not real. Much explanation that we don't have wolfs down here and that coyotes are not in our house. Then a couple hours later when she was getting in her bed for her quiet time, she spontaneously said something like I'm throwing all my scaredness up to Jesus. He's taking it for me. :)

Have you wondered what a homeschooling day looks like for us? I spent a few hours yesterday putting things into our online calendar so that things that repeated week after week would just be there. Then I just have to add the things that change each week. I usually do 3 weeks of planning at a time since her units this year are in 3 week intervals. Things went much smoother being able to reference my cell phone calendar for a list of what needed to get done this morning for school.

We started at 9AM with her Bible memory verses (while I got Callen into his highchair, gave him food, poured my cereal & milk, and ate). Then we went over her ABC flashcards. She already knows all her letters so we use them to review the sounds the letters make. She pretty much knows all her sounds too, with the exception of maybe one or two (some letters have more than one sound). After that she was supposed to do two pages in her workbook. This is where the meltdown came in. She didn't want to do the pages and she didn't want to write her name in uppercase and lowercase letters (she only wanted to write her name in all capitals). Then it took an hour and ten minutes to have her tantrum and calmed back down. When she was screaming, I grabbed the laundry and stuck a load in the wash. She finally did her two pages, with minor complaints. She was doing some coloring (the number 6 and six dolls) and then tracing the number 6. The second page was on 'g' so she colored a grasshopper, added grass to the page, and traced the letter g. Then we had lunch. When I finally sat down to eat, I had her review her kindergarten and 1st grade sight words. I think she knew 19 of the 20 kindergarten words and knew maybe 7 of the 40 1st grade words. We haven't review those in months so I was impressed. Callen was still eating so I had Elodie grab a Bob book to read, while I put a load of wash in the dryer. I was so proud of her. She didn't get frustrated or mad or throw a fit, like she has in the past. She went over the three sight words in the front and then was able to read the whole book. She either knew the word by heart or was able to sound it out. Super proud mama and daddy!! After Callen finally finished lunch, we went downstairs to listen to a story on George Washington. Then we did a snowman craft. She picked out pink paper for her snowman. I traced the circles and she cut out the smallest circle and told me to cut out the others. She then pasted them to the paper. She drew buttons, eyes, sunglasses, arms, stomach (the thing in the bottom circle "so he can eat"), and a mouth on her snowman. I drew the carrot nose on and outlined a hat, which she then traced and colored in. We finished with eight minutes to spare before quiet time. Then after her quiet time, I had her watch two short videos on MLK, Jr. since it's MLK, Jr. Day today.

4/19/11: reading

Elodie read "o-f-f. off" out of the C*nsumer Rep*rts book today. She also found "to" and said "to. Going to the mountains." I'm so proud of her!

4/9/11: L's reading

Before my mom left last week, I bought L some sight word cards and we put some of them up on the fridge. She caught on really quick. In a week, she's learned about 11 words. She knows: I, a, yes, my, to, two, no, on, at, you, and your. Smarty pants! Our neighbor the kindergarten teacher said there's 12 sight words for kindergarten. I need to get those from her. But at this rate, she'll be reading by kindergarten! She'd definitely like to just know it all already.

3/14/11: L recognizes "House"

Elodie saw me type Elizabeth and David House on the computer screen and she asked "Is that mommy or daddy house or something?"  I said "yes," and she said, "That's my House too" and pointed to "House" on the screen.

4/29/10: L letters & sayings

Elodie can now easily identify all her letters and likes to read the letter on anything, cereal boxes, food, posters, etc.

"We can do that when it's a good idea."

 "Um... let me think about that"

3/24/10: L update

Elodie is ALWAYS saying "want something to eat."  Over the past few days, she knows more and more colors.  It's like something finally clicked.  She loves "texting" (typing on the keyboard or cellphone).  She can read some letters outloud, like "c-o-w."