Reading Excitement

We've got some very avid readers in our house. Bed time is a bit of a challenge since everyone wants to have three or four stories of their choosing. Tomorrow is a big day for Penny - her first reading test. I'm not really sure what to make of her literacy training. We only see sight words come home, but I've heard from other mothers that they're doing phonics in the classroom. Penny shows no evidence of phonics...she's constantly trying to guess what words are instead of sounding them out. She's really good at sounding things out when she actually tries. Unfortunately, she seems to have an allergy to homework, which makes it like pulling teeth to get her to read a story. Perhaps knowing that she can get an animated telling of the story makes it less desirable to read on her own. I think she's got a good handle on it, despite our struggles at home. We did as much studying as I could stomach. She's sick, so even a little more reluctant to do homework than usual. Let's just hope she's a good tester and the germs don't take her out tonight!

 

Paul loves story time. He even tries to have some story time during the day as well as at nap and bed time. His favorite themes are construction equipment, Cars (both the movie and vehicles in general), and books that incorporate animal noises. Every once in a while, I manage to find books with animals and vehicles, which is just golden (current fave: Dig In). He is fond of making the animal noises himself and has begun to memorize all the construction equipment names. We have an excavator in the neighborhood which we MUST visit each time we walk to or from Penny's school. "Miss eh-tay-tah boom," is a common chant as he drifts off to sleep.

He is going to be really broken up when I take his library books back next week - he has memorized at least one (Old New, Red Blue) and reads it to Zoe on occasion. At right, you can see him reading Penny's first book she memorized, Alpha Oops! H Is for Halloween. It is pretty unique as alphabet books go and it has a plot - which can't be said for many. We've checked it out so many times and I don't mind it at all. I'm wondering if Paul will learn to read a bit faster because he overhears all the practicing with Penny. Perhaps it's not a bad thing that most of his birthday presents at this point are books.

 

 Can you believe it? Little Zoe is already intrigued by the wonders of books and has perused them on occasion. I think Penny was starting to show interest in books by Zoe's age (five months already!). Zoe isn't on the floor as much, so she doesn't get as many opportunities to enjoy the books. She joins us for Fun Fridays at the public library each week and often enjoys the story telling and a book of her own to peruse. I'm sad that I just can't afford additional story time at her bed time just yet. Maybe when Penny gets her reading down more solidly, she can step in with the other two and have some fun joint story time.

 

I'm looking forward to that possibility. She really does love stories, just not the work of reading at this point. It's a tough line to walk to build her reading skills without making reading a total chore. I want her to see how awesome reading is. I really miss reading for enjoyment myself...part of why I've become a bit of a kid's book connoisseur. There's a lot of junk out there (especially in the easy reader category), but the good stuff I'll bring home again and again. Looking forward to our library trip tomorrow - apparently Robin Hood will be visiting!

 

School Is Underway

You can tell school has started full time - I have barely any time any more, it seems! The major advantage this year is full day school, which SHOULD give me a little more time during the day to get stuff done. Haven't quite figured out why that isn't working, but give me another month, and I'm sure we'll have everything squared away. Penny's in one of the two gifted and talented Kindergartens at her school. Only two of her former classmates are joining her - a lot got assigned to other schools because competition for our school is tight, apparently. The first day was a little daunting, though Penny is no longer the smallest kid in class - no growth spurt, just teenier kids! I have some hope, though, because she is eating most of her lunch and seems to be asking for a bit more at meal times. I swear sparrows eat more than her! In case you're thinking, "Whoa, that girl in the glasses is a tall Kindergartener!" she's actually one of the shepherdesses who help to corral our little darlings each morning. They have two or three older kids from the school help organize the little guys. It's funny because Penny had already made friends with one of our shepherdesses last year on the playground. She was psyched to get to see her friend every day. I'm psyched to see the school giving kids a leadership opportunity at such a young age.

Also pictured is the girl who's been a bit of a bully for Penny. A little sad, but I've got my first "I don't want to go to school any more because she's always picking on me." Penny seems to have a bit of victim mentality - doesn't retaliate in any fashion, just gets sad about it. I don't know how to counsel her on it because I don't want her physically fighting, but I don't want her to be a pushover either. For now, I've made the teacher aware and Penny and I have resolved to pray for her bully. I'm actually pretty proud of Penny because when I mentioned praying, she made a mental note (out loud) to add it to her daily prayer routine at school. This is totally on her own, obviously, because it's a public school. I'm proud of her for praying routinely!

Paul is thoroughly enjoying the daily return to the playground. We are experimenting with bringing toys to the playground these days, so he has discovered the wonders of the race car on the slide, among other things. You'd think the boy died and gone to heaven when we brought the little riding car out to the playground. He gets nowhere with it in the somewhat unkempt yard at home, so the rubber surfacing and pavement was an absolute dream. He has already altered the wear pattern on his shoes riding his little car so much over there. Of course, his joy is kept to days when we're running so late that we have to drive. We seem to have the park largely to ourselves in the morning after drop-off as everyone dashes out to do their daily chores and whatnot. I have found that if I keep him at the park until 11am and then have him walk all the way home, he's just barely tired enough to fall asleep for his 12:30 nap (which usually starts around 1:30pm). It's the only way for him to nap before pickup. He is INCREDIBLY nap resistant.

Zoe is quite the charmer at school. Everyone loves to say "hi!" and get a smile. It's hard to be just the backdrop on which she is mounted, but it does mean no one is paying attention to my uncombed hair or burpy outfit. She's on her second cold of the school year already, though, so perhaps I need to be a bit more strict about not letting anyone touch her. She gets to do a lot of people watching on our daily journeys and I'm sure she'll be raring to go tackle the playground with Paul by spring time. She's already moving a little on her tummy and tummy time lasts long enough for me to finish a task - not a big or involved task, but at least A task.

I have actually been up to something at long last. I feel like I've just been keeping up for a while, so it was nice to get some things done. For whatever reason, we've been inundated by decent coupons for Shutterfly and Snapfish, so I went on a project binge. Three photo books in nearly as many weeks, plus some Christmas gifts and I finally made some prints to document some of our remaining time abroad. I also made some prints to act as stationary. I wish I could find a permanent use for all my wildflower pics from Grenada and the U.S. Once that was all done, I managed to do the calligraphy for a wedding's invitations in a mere week. I'm quite proud of doing that without totally using up all the extra envelopes with my mistakes. Now, my garden is finally starting to really pay off in tomatoes, so I'll likely be cooking every few days just to ensure we don't waste all the yumminess. Then it's birthdays, holidays and Christmas break, so I guess there just will never be a dull moment. Gosh, but time flies and it may be hard to squeeze in some good blogging time. I'll try, though. There's just too much going on not to document and share it.