Thursday, November 29, 2007

I haven't posted in a while because we haven't done stuff in a while. B got a stomach bug that took over our lives for a week.

He's been better for a a while now. Yesterday, we went downtown to visit the Art Museum. When we got there, we had a pee emergency so we decided to run into the library instead (it's next door). Finding that the regular bathroom was being cleaned, we rushed back to the family bathroom in the children's department. On our way out, T spotted some Muzzy kits and begged for one. He didn't know what it was, but he was attracted to the pictures. I explained it to him.

The only choices were German or Italian. He decided on German because I said that dh speaks a little German and that many of his work friends are German. We were lucky to even find Muzzy because it was recently purchased and everyone wants it.

The kids really loved the CDs, although T kept saying it was Spanish. We have that cleared up now. I don't expect them to get anything out of it other than exposure to other languages, which is an important concept in general. They have acquired a few new words and phrases. They really enjoy it. The kits are so well done.

After watching DVD1 twice yesterday, I told them they could watch DVD2 today. T was so excited that he ran around yelling, "Ich bin dick! Ich bin dick!" or "I'm fat!! I'm fat!!" Later, I asked T a question and he slowly replied, "Nein."

Right now, I have to get ready. I need to bike and shower. It's going to be a busy afternoon. First, we're going to look at brick for the house. Then, B has rehearsal for his play this evening.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

My little T is reading!

My little T, who just turned 4 last month, has really started to read. There were some past incidents in which he read certain words but we figured they were flukes. Now, I've seen that he actually understands the process of sounding out and blending the beginning, medial and ending sounds. I don't figure he'll actually jump ahead to independent reading any time soon, although I suppose anything is possible. At least with B, there was a very long plateau period. To be completely honest, as much as my kids love books, they would much rather host elaborate birthday parties for their toys and play like that than focus on decoding a book yet. The interest is just really not there yet, but it will come.

Anyway, we had started playing this "game show game" with the Magnadoodle that was a word game. I had noticed that B was still sounding out very common words and sometimes stumbling over the illogical phonics in English. So I thought that he might be open to memorizing some common sight words like "was", "this", etc. I would write a word on the Magnadoodle and quiz him, followed by lots of loud and silly musical play when he got it right. It really did help some of those words stick in his head so that he wouldn't have to sound out words like "was" every time. When it was T's turn, I'd just ask him to spell the words because he only knew a few sight words.

One day, T brought the Magnadoodle to dh and wanted him to play that game with him. Dh wrote "cat" and T immediately declared "cat". Fair enough, that's a really common sight word. So dh proceeded to write "sat", "mat" and even "fat" (a word he's never seen before), with T correctly sounding out each word. Sometimes, we'd have to remind him to start on the left, or he would read "mat" as "tam". But he methodically and easily read, "muh-ah-tuh, muh-at, mat!". We wondered if he just had that "at" ending down due to some recent episode of "Between the Lions" or something.

Then, at the library the other day, when B was in art class, T was browsing through a Nick Jr magazine. He read, "hot", "cold" and "look". "Cold" was "kuh-oh-luh-duh, kuhohl-duh, cohl-duh, colduh!" For "look", he made 4 individual sounds, "luh, oo-oo-kuh, luh-ookuh, look!". When we got home, I pulled out some intermediate Bob books and found that he could read basically any short word as long as it followed simple phonics, e.g. "log", "mop", "rat", etc.

The really funny thing is that he doesn't know all the letter names or all their sounds yet but he can do the next step up. Like, sometimes I have to say "That's an "L" and then he says, "Oh... luh-ohg, log!" Or in the case of rat, he read it as "rot" because he's not sure what sound "a" makes. He did get tired (like B does) after a few words so he then lost interest. I still can't believe he's starting to read though! I don't know where that came from! My younger sister taught herself to read when she was 4, however. Maybe it has something to do with having an older sibling.
B's reading and writing have really been coming along. He is self-taught, but he watches some reading programs (e.g. "Between the Lions") and he gets support from us.

He recently wrote and illustrated some little books. I don't have the drawings scanned but here is the text. I wrote a translation in parentheses after each story.

Book 1:

Ous u pon u time
Dinusor livd in u bush.
Den u meen frend
went in Dinusore bush.
Hee wus raree meen, but hee nevr plade wif him.
But the meen dinusor chride too plae wif the
nise dinusore and the nise dinusore wudit plae wif him.
THE END
(Once upon a time, Dinosaur lived in a bush. Then, a mean friend went in
Dinosaur's bush. He was very mean, but he never played with him. But the
mean dinosaur tried to play with the nice dinosaur and the nice dinosaur
wouldn't play with him.)

Book 2:
Ous u pon u time Stegusoris wus leevnig dinusore's bush.
Den u chronuoedon spilt on him.
(Once upon a time Stegosaurus was leaving Dinosaur's bush.
Then, a pteronodon spilled on him.)

Hee wus mad. (He was mad.)

Hee floo uwae bcus the uvr
dinusore wus mad at him.
(He flew away because the other dinosaur was mad at him.)

THE END

Since then, I have pointed out that the "u" is really "a" even though it really does sound like a short "u". He's corrected that. And I've noticed in a subsequent book that he now writes "once" instead of "ous". He has started writing grocery lists and he also emails his grandparents. He loves to write!
B has finished up another art class at the museum. He first took one about drawing techniques (mostly shading and blending). Then, he took one about paper. In his paper class, they wove a quilt from paper strips; the strips were cut from an abstract painting they made. They also made a collage and did a photomontage. B's favorite part was the photomontage (he says that word!). He was also chatting about Pablo Picasso, because their photomontage was based on Pablo Picasso's cubist faces. The photo was a black-and-white picture of B, colored wildly, cut into bits and pasted in odd places.

He's really enjoyed these classes so much. And he attempts to recreate projects at home. A few weeks ago, he dedicated himself to teaching T how to make a paper quilt. He even made a name-tag for T.

In other news, B is going to be a shepherd in our church's Christmas pageant. I was surprised at how enthuastic he was about the play since he's a very introverted kid. Of course, I'm incredibly introverted and I've always enjoyed acting and public speaking. I don't get nervous at all; the bigger the audience, the easier it is for me. He even memorized many lines from the parts he was going to read for (another weird thing that I do well). He studied the script and matched up the written words with the words he memorized. If he really enjoys this, I'm going to put him in a drama class at the Children's Theatre after the holidays. The class I had in mind is not performance oriented, rather it's fun dramatic interpretation of skits.; there is no production or recital.