| Sight Words |
[Jan. 26th, 2009|10:02 am] |
So I'm not really sure how I feel about sight words. It feels to me like sight words are to phonics as "whole language" is to grammar. I'm a huge fan of the basics when it comes to learning to read/spell/write. I feel like the "basics" I learned - phonics, grammar, and later root words (particularly Greek, Latin, and Teutonic roots) have been a HUGE help to me. I feel that it shows in that I'm one of the relatively few engineers I know who can actually read and write. I even got a 790 on the verbal section of the SAT (and *that* shocked pretty much everybody)! One of the things that excites me about the curriculum that I plan to use for my kids is that it does have a focus on these basics. But then... I can certainly see some value in sight words. I look at Jordan and how frustrated she sometimes gets when I ask her to read a word and she painstakingly sounds it out. I think she feels like it's frustratingly slow, and as someone who was always pretty quick and intuitive with all 3 R's myself, I can completely sympathize. I also see the pride on her face when I show her a sight word flashcard, and she reads it quickly. I'm hoping it can speed her reading a bit and make her happy (and, honestly, keep her interested). We just did more sight words in school today. I'd say she has a little over 20 now - some she recognizes instantly, some take a little more time (she's still sounding out a bit on a few, but I'm really ok with that). They're not all completely basic, either - she's got ones like "word" and "my," and today we just had a huge discussion on the difference between "than" and "then." That was fun. :-)
I just hope I can strike a balance, and I'm thinking our homeschooling curriculum will help me do that, with its academic rigor. I'm very excited about really starting kindergarten in the fall. If we were going the public school route, I wouldn't be able to get her into kindergarten this year, as her birthday's 07 October and CO is *very* hard-line about not letting children start if their birthday's after the deadline (01 October, boo!). The state flat refuses to fund a child who's not 5 by the deadline, and so the school districts simply won't admit them, no matter how smart and/or advanced they are - even if they're already reading. Of course, they say they make this up to you by having a path where you can graduate early - but by that time you've got years of education and demotivation behind you. No thanks. Fortunately, CO makes up for that by being an *extremely* homeschool-friendly state, and here along the front range there's a really great program that allows homeschooling families to take advantage of public school teachers, resources, etc, and let their kids go to "school" one day a week to do enrichment activities and socialize with other homeschoolers. This on top of any other "private" homeschool groups you might belong to (and I already belong to one). Of course, I'll have to wait till fall 2010 to put Jordan in, thanks to the public school deadlines - but that's ok, nobody will care that she's in Options kindergarten when she's in first grade at home. She'll just be one of the oldest (if not *the* oldest) in her class, and probably be one of the "helper kids" - as an oldest child, she already seems to like that role. ;-) |
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| Wow... |
[Jan. 24th, 2009|06:59 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
... my girls are using their Biscoff cookies as cell phones to call God and ask for breakfast burritos. No, I'm not joking. |
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| Crazy Day |
[Jan. 14th, 2009|12:22 pm] |
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So our morning got a bit derailed when Nora decided to go all Exorcist in the car. Yuck! Thank goodness for orange-scented Armor All wipes. And orange-scented Febreze air freshener. She did this when we were practically at the library for story time, so I gave the library a miss and drove home instead. This resulted in chicken soup for lunch. Now Nora is horseback riding - on Jordan! Jordan is a very brave little girl. Though she did insist that Nora carry a spit bowl, just in case. Now to read to the girls, put them down, and go flip laundry... |
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| FAIL or WIN? |
[Jan. 9th, 2009|09:46 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
So it's just a really unique experience screwing up on a Wii Fit game - and having your 4-year old daughter inform you that was "EPIC FAIL." Yes, those were her exact words. I about lost it laughing! Then I got further along and messed up again, and she goes, "That would be FAIL." So I turned around and asked her, in her mind, what was the difference between fail and "epic fail." She said she didn't know. I just let her mull it over while I continued (the "Balance Bubble" game, for any of you Wii Fit people out there - but it's the harder version, where the bees can sting you). So then I accidentally got stung by the first bee about 350 yards into the course, and Jordan pipes up, "now THAT would be EPIC fail."
As much as she can frustrate me sometimes (like all of yesterday), the kid is extremely entertaining! |
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| My Worldly 4-Year Old... |
[Jan. 7th, 2009|09:54 am] |
So I was discussing the day's activities with the girls, and suggesting that we could have "potato pancakes" for dinner (yeah, I'm gonna try my hand at latke-making... I have a LOT of potatoes to use). So Jordan starts in with her 4-year old logic:
J: "No! They're a dessert food!"
Me: "No, they can be a dinner food."
J: "But they're for Chanukah, mommy! We're only supposed to eat potato pancakes on Chanukah, and IT'S NOT CHANUKAH!"
Me: "Jordan, we're Catholic."
President George W. Bush: "And for you all in New York City and California, Happy Cha-NOO-kah." ;-) [You had to see the silly cartoon.] |
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| Wii!!! |
[Dec. 26th, 2008|01:33 pm] |
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I think Chris said it best. :-) There's a reason I haven't really been into a modern game system - loved my NES (and we still have Chris' NES hooked up), played Super NES very briefly senior year of high school, and Play Station a few times during breaks freshman year of college. But between time constraints and lack of skills, I haven't done much (except go back to the classic NES!)... until now. We got a Wii for Christmas, and it is AWESOME. Chris hooked it up right away, and we've already enjoyed playing Wii sports together. I took it one further and hooked up the Wii Fit this morning. Wow! Felt really good, and I could do it without *too* much grief from the girls, who were with me the entire time. This will sure make it easier to get more exercise... but I still want to swim a lot. I prefer that over, say, running, because of the lower impact. So today I stuck mostly to balance games, did a bit of aerobics (including a short run, if you can believe it!), and some yoga. I lowered my Wii Fit age substantially the first day! Now I have to deal with a couple of drama queens and get lunch together... |
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| Almost feels like Christmas... |
[Dec. 24th, 2008|08:46 pm] |
So I actually got our Christmas setup done in our living room. We keep it simple... we don't do a tree for multiple reasons. One set is practical - with a real tree, we'd have allergies (and possibly mess!) to contend with, and with a fake tree, we'd have dust (and thus also probably allergies) and storage to contend with, so we can't really win. The other set is more philosophical - Chris was wonderful talking to Jordan about it yesterday. Our decorations keep the focus a little more on what Christmas is all about - to us as Christians, of course. We set up our coffee table in front of the fireplace (which we don't really use, because on the days we would want to use it, it tends to be illegal due to air quality restrictions) and put a Nativity set on it. We hang stockings on the mantle behind, and put gifts under the table. Right now, we have a small, cheap, porcelain Nativity set, but hey, it's a Nativity set. Someday I want a larger one, preferably Jerusalem olive wood. I'm sure it'll happen someday - just not this year. There are a couple of "big" gifts (a keyboard for the girls from their paternal grandparents, and another big "adult" gift) that I've been trying to think about how to set up - maybe I'll just put them in the living room on the other wall. But the other gifts are under the table (the tangible ones, anyway), and the stockings are stuffed. I'm currently preparing a couple of other small things, and I will probably get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. Woohoo! Tomorrow morning, Chris will stay up after work and we'll go to 0845 Mass as a family (thank GOD I don't have to take the girls by myself!). Now I just need to figure out timing for Christmas dinner, and pray that our roast (which has been in the fridge since Monday) will be thawed when I go to roast it tomorrow.
I really like keeping Christmas pretty simple. I'm actually kind of glad that illness has made me put it down on the priority list (just wish I didn't have to actually suffer through the illness for that to happen) - I would love to feel justified in keeping Christmas this simple every year, even when I'm healthy enough to run around like a lunatic. |
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| Maybe this should be Jordan's LJ... |
[Dec. 16th, 2008|12:32 pm] |
I can't resist - another Jordanism:
Sitting at a stoplight:
J: "Mommy, can you clean my glasses?"
Me: "No, sweetie, I'm driving."
J: "No, you're not! You're stopping!" |
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| Another Jordan Story |
[Dec. 13th, 2008|09:39 am] |
OK, so this happened earlier this week, but it was so funny that it deserved to be enshrined here for my non-immediate family who hasn't heard about it...
So I have this little lesson arc I'm doing for her school that talks about five pointed stars vs. six pointed stars, and introduces the six pointed star as the Star of David. (Obviously, this is leading up to a whole other star, and the Christmas story.) So then we tell the story of David and Goliath, and she even gets a lovely little picture of David and Goliath to color. At the end of the school day, I was kind of reviewing what we'd talked about. She was filling in blanks on the story of David and Goliath, and doing a great job, so I decided to get a little advanced. I said, "Do you remember what Goliath's people [Philistines, for anyone not in the know] were called?" She didn't offhand, so I decided to prompt her a bit. I said, "Phiiiiii..." to which she replied...
"PHILLIES!!!"
I bet the Rays would agree... |
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