Can Nutrition and Exercise Cure Dyslexia?

Campster shows off her color wheel painting

Sorry for my long absence.  Following the homeschool conference at MASS HOPE in late April, I had a lot to think about.  Having determined that Campster, now 8, is definitely dyslexic, I sought out advice and help at the conference, and from friends and family with experience.  What a vast difference in approaches I found!  (But more about that in another post to come).

For now, I had my "path forward":  Nutrition and exercise.  What?!  What do nutrition and exercise have to do with dyslexia?  Well, first of all, we were able to determine that one of the causes of Campster's dyslexia is that the two sides (hemispheres) of her brain were not talking to each other.  Here is a simple test to determine this:  Tactile Localization.  Campster failed this test horribly.  Whereas the other children could do it, no problem.

At MASSHOPE, we were blessed to have the speaker, Dianne Craft, talk about the corpus collosum, that section of the brain in between the two hemispheres.  It is made up of mostly DHA.  Children who are dyslexic need Cod Liver Oil (full of DHA) in order to build up their mid-brain and allow the communication between the two hemispheres to happen.  We have been taking Twin Labs Emusified Orange Flavor Cod Liver Oil, three times a day, ever since.

Secondly, Mrs. Craft talked about doing exercises for the brain, which cross over that mid-line between the hemispheres.   At first, Campster could not do this.  Wow!  We were so amazed.  But, within a week of doing "Writing Eights" everyday, she could do it smoothly.  We will continue to do these exercises at least four times a week for six months.

Having done these for a couple of months now, Campster is showing much improvement.  She is reading with enthusiasm!  She tied her own shoelaces, which she has never been able to do before.  We have hope that she will be a reader after all!

Wish you were here!

The January Freak Out

The girls playing Club Penguin 

A fellow Gabby Mom Blogger posted that she experiences The January Freak Out every year.  You know, that time of year when you wake up in the middle of the night wondering:  "What if I'm not doing this right?"  "Should I add grammar?"  "Am I ruining my kids for life by not teaching them about (fill in the blank) this year?"

Well, by now I hope you know me well enough to know that I don't do the shoulds or worry much, but I do find myself rethinking things each year.  I think we all do.  Sometimes my Freak Out doesn't hit until spring.  But this year, I am having a January Freak Out of my own.

For starters, computer time has gotten seriously out of control around here.  First the girls got everyone into Pixie Hollow, the Disney Fairies online game.  And then Huntz introduced them to Club Penguin (also Disney).  The games are fun and they really enjoy them.  Educational value is next to nothing, except that the girls are wanting to be able to read better so they can understand what is going on in the game.  So I am now dolling out computer time in exchange for other, more obviously educational things.

For example, the girls must each do their reading before getting time on the computer.  (And, it goes without saying that this can only happen when all their chores are done).   I also got composition books with cool covers at Staples for $ .50 each, and each child is expected to write a page each day.  About anything.  Even about how much they loathe writing in their journal.  So far, each has started a story and is enjoying continuing it each day.  I don't require them to worry about spelling, grammar or punctuation.  It's just to get them writing.  Oh, and it doesn't have to be neat, just legible.

Jor Man is wonderful about reading, so I don't ask him to complete any before playing.  But he needs to get his writing done.  The girls thought this wasn't fair, and I reminded them, for the umpteenth time, that life isn't fair, and they will never be studying the same things as their brother, so get over it.  It won't be the same.

So far, Sher Bear is just writing words, Campster has a princess story going, and Jor Man is writing a greek myth.  Huntz has not been at the house since the "crack down" so he's in for a surprise when he comes back!

Yup.  That's it.  That's me cracking down.  LOL!  It seemed like a big deal at the time, but now writing it, it's not.  The kids have gotten into the swing of things, and I feel better about having something to show the "officials" should it ever come to that.

Oh, and attitudes.  We are working on some major attitude adjustments.  Some negative, whiny, sorry-for-myself attitudes have crept into our home.  We are remodeling them.  Prayer, discussions, correction, and encouragement are all part of this.  A child, who shall remain nameless, was caught cheating at Killer Bunnies the other day.  Said child was immediately taken out of the game, and not allowed to play the next afternoon when we had game day at church.  Initially this child denied any wrong doing, and was in quite a huff about it.

But by the next day, the same child was overheard telling a friend, "I can't play because I cheated yesterday.  Boy, this stinks not being able to play.  I'll never do that again."  Well, I am not holding my breath, but I am encouraged by the change in attitude.  I'll take attitude over academics any day.

Wish you were here!

Gratitude

Clockwise, from the left, Sher-Bear, Big Dad, Campster, Jor Man and Huntz - all hard at work on thank yous

Christmas is over.  The tree is down, and all the trimmings put away.  Time for thank yous!

Stamps are a fun way to decorate a thank you

Do your kids moan like mine when you ask them to write a thank you note?  This year we combatted the moany-groanies with a couple of new strategies.  First of all, we all sat down at the table and wrote our thank yous together.  Modeling the behavior you wish to see in your children is always a helpful step.

Secondly, we told them that any gift without a thank you would be put away until next year.  Perhaps next year they will feel more thankful for it! Happily, no gifts were confiscated this year.

Everyone wrote and then decorated their thank yous with drawings and colorful stamps.

Campster using her spelling book while writing her thank yous

Another new strategy we implemented was the spelling book.  Each child was given a spiral bound note card book, and any time they asked how a word was spelled, we wrote it in the book with a Sharpie marker.

Lastly, we wrote up a mock letter as an example to the children.  We emphasized that this was just the start of a thank you, but it gave them an opportunity to learn parts of a letter.

Being thankful, really grateful for what we have, is a short cut to happiness.

Wish you were here!

Pen Pals

When I was young, my travel agent parents arranged a pen pal for me.  She lived in Vienna, Austria and wanted to practice her english.  So we sent letters back and forth for a long time.

Now I am trying to think of ways to encourage Campster to write.  She made a good friend last year at Aquarium School.  The two girls were inseparable every class.  So I suggested to the other girl's mother that they become pen pals.

We certainly could have done it over email.  And they could have even talked on the phone.  But I think there is just something special about getting an old fashioned letter in the mail.

So Campster and her friend have been writing back and forth.  Her letters are brief, and covered with artwork.  She's had the opportunity to practice letter writing and addressing envelopes.  She gets to work on her penmanship and spelling.  And when the letter arrives, she gets to read and practice that all important skill of deciphering someone else's handwriting.  Of course, Campster doesn't realize any of this.  She just thinks it's fun, because it is.

The internet could come in handy when finding a pen pal.  There are so many Christian Homeschooling blogs and sites up - If you want to find a pen pal for your child, just ask around.  You could also have Grandparents, Aunt or Uncles or cousins write.

By the way, the purpose of these letters is not to have them be perfect.  Don't ruin the fun by insisting that their penmanship be neat, the words spelled correctly, or even the sentences complete.  It's all about writing for fun and for the joy of relationship.

You could decorate some plain paper with stamps to make "Stationery".  Postcards are fun for older kids with smaller handwriting.  Think of including photos or artwork as a part of the letter.  Talk with your child about the process of getting to know someone and making chit-chat.

Wish you were here!

Na No Wri Mo

I have taken the plunge and am writing my first novel.  I have always wanted to write a novel, but never even began one before.  Now I have 1,091 words down and 48,909 to go.

National Novel Writing Month, or Na No Wri Mo is a great website where you can sign up to write a novel in a month.  Not just any month - specifically November.

So between now and November 30th, I will be typing until my fingers fall off!  For people over the age of 13, they set a 50,000 word goal.  That's 1,667 words a day.  Younger writers can set there own goals.

You can check my widget from Na No Wri Mo to track my words, and see how I am doing.  Any other homeschoolers out there want to write this month?  My kids showed a little interest and then waned.  Actually, I am glad.  I want them to learn to type first, so that I am not doing the typing for them.

As I was thinking what to write about, several ideas came to mind, but none had endings.  Perhaps, in the future, I will write one of those and see if an ending presents itself.

I have decided to write about my father, specifically my memories of him and our relationship.  I think it will be a good process for me.  He died 7 years ago from prostate cancer, and I miss him every day. His life had an ending.

I want to keep blogging, so I will.  These are two separate projects.  Na No Wri Mo suggests that for the month of November - just write.  Turn off your internal editor and just get the words on paper.  So that is what I am going to do.  Come December, I can decide if I want to edit it then, or set it aside for a while.  In any case, you won't see it until it's done and edited.  If then.

I just love that as an unschooler, I have time to tackle projects as they sound exciting.  At the end of this month, I will have written a novel.  And my kids will have seen that this is possible.  I wonder what they will do?

Wish you were here!

The New Chefs

Campster's Gluten-Free, Butterfly-Shaped, Pepperoni Pizza

My kids have always liked to help out in the kitchen.  Now that I am done with my chef job, and back to my full-time mommy job, I decided I'd like the kids to do more of the cooking.

Cooking is the perfect unschooling medium.  It involves planning the menu and writing it out, reading the recipe, shopping for the ingredients, economizing the purchases, coordinating the time it will take to cook with the time it will be served, measuring ingredients (fractions!), time and temperature, safety training, nutrition. . . I'm sure I've missed some, but you get the idea.

We have conversations about why eating only mac & cheese for three meals a day would not be good for your body.  We talk about carbs, proteins, fats and sugars.  We categorize foods into meats, dairy, grains, vegetables and fruits.  We pick fresh produce from the garden.  And we butcher our own chickens.  Lots of botany and biology going on.

For now we have settled on Sher-Bear cooking breakfast, Campster cooking lunch, and Jor Man cooking dinner.  They plan the menus out a week in advance and help with the grocery list and shopping.  I encourage them to think ahead a couple of days and see what they might need to either defrost or to prepare in advance.  For instance, on Sundays we always have a potluck lunch after church.  So Campster needed to prepare the pot roast (crock pot overnight) and the brownies the night before.  And Jor Man is making Coq Au Vin for dinner Monday night, so it will start cooking Sunday afternoon.

This morning, Sher Bear cooked scrambled eggs and bacon for us.  I supervised, but she did most of it herself.  Before we eat, we all say "Thank you" to the chef, (who is beaming) and then we give thanks to God for the food.

Wish you were here!

Skills

Jor Man with the Coconut he found and opened

Dakota's comments on the last post really made me smile.  I love ALL your comments.  Keep them coming.  But what you may not know is that Dakota and I know each other in real life.  In fact, she's the person who encouraged me to start writing this blog - and the person I am usually thinking of when I write it - My audience of one, and the rest of you are all gravy!!  Wonderful gravy.  Dakota challenges me with her questions and makes me think about why I am doing what I am doing.  Not that I haven't thought about it before, but putting into words clarifies it for me.

But back to Dakota's comments.  For the record, I also started out as a Classical-minded, Charlotte Mason leaning educator.  I still am.  I love the classics and good literature.  I read "The Well-Trained Mind" through several times before my oldest child turned 3!!  We have a lot in common, Dakota and I.  (The two best ways to totally overwhelm yourself before starting homeschool are to read through The Well-Trained Mind, and to browse through the Rainbow Resource Curriculum Guide.  The options are indeed endless.)

It is so easy for me to fall back into that - it's deliciously comforting to me in theory.  I love the idea that I could educate my children in such a way that they would have read all of those wonderful books, and had a very rigorous and thorough education.  It's just that when I tried, I found a different reality hitting me in the face.

At Auto Safari Chapin in Guatemala

I didn't like the struggles with my kids (mostly Jor Man, since he was the guinea pig first born).  It broke my heart to see his initial joy and enthusiasm toward learning turning into a grimace, a pout and then all out defiance.

Reading John Holt's "How Children Fail" was such a revelation to me.  I was expecting my children to produce a certain result.  And this had slowly become so much more important to me than the fun of learning.  I saw in that book that I was producing for some unseen (and some seen) critics of my homeschooling.  I felt I had to produce brilliant and well-schooled children in order to "prove" that my choice in homeschooling them was somehow justified.  (As if I could convince anyone who doesn't want to believe in homeschooling.)

Hitting the wall came for me in fits and spurts.  I noticed how much they learned when life created a necessary school break.  Instead of "regressing"  when we took a break, they excelled.  It got downright embarrassing.  They did better when I didn't teach them than when I did.  Hmmm.  So much for proving myself.

Sher Bear's drawing of the boy we met carrying his parrots on a stick

I noticed the "teachable moments" - those times when they were really excited about about a beaver, a fly or a plant they found in the yard.  I noticed how a movie could open up a whole discussion about something, that (prior to the movie) they had not been interested in.

Piece by piece, I realized that my teaching them was not the joyfilled, fun experience we were all hoping for.  I organized, planned and imagined wonderful times of learning - and in practice, there was arguing, groaning and (yes) yelling on my part.

I considered sending them all to school.  Perhaps it was just that I was a poor teacher.  Or perhaps teaching and parenting was too much for me.

After digging for Mayan artifacts in the mud, Sher Bear does her "yucky" face

But I found something else.  I clung to the moments of wonder.  Instead of urging them to get back to the table and finish their worksheets, I entered into their questioning of the world.  Discovery became an adventure - OUR adventure.  And they started asking me for help.

"Mom, could you help me figure out how to skin this snake?"  Umm, ugh, okay.  "Mom, can we find the chicken's brain?" (while slaughtering our chickens)  "Mom, how do you spell Birthday?"  "How do you make a B?"  "How many quarters do I need to buy my doll a backpack?"

This Monarch butterfly is one of the many Campster will catch this summer.

All the subjects flowed naturally from their curiousity.  I no longer needed to coerce them into learning.  I just needed to be willing and flexible.  Suddenly, I was the best "teacher" ever.  They were learning, and I was helping.  I wasn't getting in their way.

Dakota, you mentioned skills like reading, writing and math.  I know you well enough to know that you read volumes to your kids.  They will read.  You don't need to teach them.  They'll get it.  They'll start asking you how to spell words and how to make the various letters.  They'll become interested in numbers, counting, and how many.  Before you know it, they'll be doing division, and you will have never "taught" them it.  That's how its happening in our house.

Campster and Sher Bear climbing the steps of an old chapel

If your kids are begging you to teach them to read, facilitate their learning.  Doing it every day is great if you want them to read early - but if they get frustrated - back off.  Kids who feel like mom or dad (or teacher) is disappointed in their progress start to shut down.  Every time my daughter reads, she's so much better than the last time.  It's a natural developmental process.  Like talking.  Like walking.

When my kids were learning to walk, I sometimes did egg them on.  It's fun.  And as long as it was fun for them, they would humor me and try.  But sometimes, I think, they didn't want to.  They resented the pressure.  Imagine if there was a school for walking.  Imagine we sent our kids to walking school, and they were graded.  Some kids were considered remedial walkers.  Really - that sounds absurd.  Or talking school?!  We play with kids when they babble.  It's fun and that is how they learned to talk.  We talked with them.  Can you imagine step by step instructions for teaching your child to talk?  "Teach your child to walk and talk in 100 easy lessons".  Crazy.  So why is reading, writing and math any different?

Jor Man overwhelmed by his club sandwich!

By not teaching my girls these things, I have noticed the natural development that occurs in these three areas if children are left to investigate them at their own pace.  It's so amazing.  Just like walking, talking, and feeding oneself - children naturally learn to read, write, and do math.  It's built into our development.

These are skills.  I agree with Dakota.  We can place them in a category different than, say, American History.  We do use them everyday.  Even without trying to.  Give your children an environment that is full of real life (not an isolated existence in a classroom full of their peers), and watch them develop naturally - with all the love for learning that God gave them.

Wish you were here!

P.S. - Dakota - I love you whether you homeschool or not - whether you unschool or insist on doing the trivium.  Whatever works for you and your kids is wonderful.

Dressing the Part

Jor Man as Leif Erikson for Halloween 2006.

Our kids love playing dress up.  Costume changes happen several times a day.  When we studied the Vikings three years ago, Jor Man wanted to be Leif Erikson for Halloween.  

Dressing up naturally leads to acting out the story.  And making up new stories, too.  Around that same time, we also saw Mary Poppins for the first time.  Jor Man decided to write a play in which Erik the Red and the Vikings pillage a town, and then they get on horses that fly away (like Mary Poppins' carousel!).  He may have been taking a little poetic license with the history, but he will never forget the Vikings.

Sher Bear laughs at the pinata in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

We bought traditional outfits for the girls in Guatemala.  (Jor Man didn't want one!)  They love dressing up Guatemalan.  They ask to wear their new clothes almost everyday.

Campster gets sun block from Big Dad in Guatemala

Making costumes (or buying them) is an easy way to make learning fun, and connect with another culture.

Campster and her doll posing with a girl in native costume at the Central Market in Guatemala City.

This fall, Sher Bear wants to study Egypt.  So I am putting together a study of Ancient Civilizations to do with her and with Campster.  I found this cool book at the Homeschool Convention.  I think making hats to wear will help make studying the Ancients memorable and fun!


Wish you were here!

Writers' Block

We are back, and we had a fabulous time.  There is so much to tell.

And yet, every time I sit down and try to put it into words - I am at a loss.  Which got me thinking - What do I do when I want the kids to write?  How do I encourage their writing?

When words fail us, or feel too intimidating, pictures can help the process.  Perhaps a child does not know where to begin when writing a story - have him or her draw a picture.  Then ask them to tell you about their picture:  What is happening?  How did it start?  Who is in the picture?  Where is it happening?  When did it happen?  And what happens next?

If you write down what they answer, you will have the rough draft of the story.  Little kids love to have you write out the story they dictate based on a picture.  And bigger kids will get the start they need to get a paper or a story going.

So, taking my own advice, here's my picture:

Rosa, Beauty Mom, Sher Bear and Campster with our tortillas

This is Rosa.  Rosa is the maid (or in spanish, criada) at my cousin, Ricardo's home.  We arrived in Guatemala City in the evening on Sunday. And first thing we did on Monday morning when we woke up was to go into the kitchen and meet Rosa.  She is so sweet.

Here Rosa is making tortillas for the family.  She taught the girls and me how to make them.  It's harder than it looks.

Our tortillas were not round and flat like Rosa's.  But they were still edible.  The girls made sure that everyone got to try their tortillas!

Rosa does not speak any english.  So the girls also got a chance to communicate non verbally with someone.  And they began to ask how to say things in spanish.

I took over 600 pictures while in Guatemala.  I promise not to show them all to you - just the highlights.  But the next few weeks will probably be a lot of Guatemala.  It is a lovely place.

Wish you were here!

The Right Way to Write

I have been watching something wonderful happening.  Sher Bear is beginning to write.  This is wonderful because it is such an organic, developmental experience for her.

When Jor Man was that age, we were already doing a full "school" program at home.  I did more of a Classical Trivium program with him in the beginning.  I read "The Well Trained Mind" all the way through several times.  We worked on reading.  We worked on writing.  We worked on language arts.  We studied the Ancients and even mummified a chicken.  It was very intentional and rigorous.  And for a little while, it was fun.

I think it was fun because it was novel and I was only teaching one child.  Campster was there, getting into stuff and learning right along with us.  I was fresh and enthusiastic - and that goes a long way into making "school" fun.

Sher Bear writing.  Behind her paper are the Abeka blend ladders that a friend gave us.

But then we began to run into problems.  Jor Man didn't like to be told how to write his letters.  If I wasn't sitting there, watching each stroke, he might start a letter at the bottom, instead of at the top.  Or he might make his loops counter-clockwise, instead of clockwise.  Oh, the horror of it!

I can joke now, because I have distance and I now know that everything turns out all right in the end.  But at the time, I was really stressing myself out.  And Jor Man, of course, picked up on my anxiety.  He felt pressured to do it "my way" - which I kept telling him was the "right" way.  And the more I insisted, the more he balked.

And then there were the backwards letters.  Is he dyslexic?  What does it all mean?  So much worry - and so little fun.  Of course, I believed that if he didn't write correctly, it meant something about me as a teacher and parent.  And maybe it meant homeschooling wasn't working, and I'd need to send him to "real" school.  Ugh.

I got books on reversals, and worked with him.  That helped only when we were focusing on getting the letters (and numbers) to go the right way.  When he wrote outside of that time, they were all backwards again.

So I gave up.  Really.  And soon something else started happening.  He got really creative with his writing.  He started trying to write in cursive (he was 6 or 7 then), and he was pretty good.  He liked mimicking my writing, and his dad's.  He took an interest in how his writing looked, and soon the letters and numbers were going the "right" way.  His writing became incredibly legible.

I think his fine motor skills caught up and his interest in handwriting, now that mom wasn't badgering him about it, brought out the artist in him.  He wanted to learn calligraphy.  He began drawing cartoons.

Campster taught herself to write.  But then I intervened.  I tried "A Reason for Handwriting" and she didn't protest.  But she liked coloring the pictures more that writing the letters.  The letters were sloppy, and she didn't follow their instructions.  I could tell she had no interest in learning to write that way - so she wasn't giving it any real effort.  Another fail!

She still writes in nearly all capital letters, and usually reverses a letter or two.  I don't give it a second thought.  She writes a lot - all day calling out "Mom?  How do you spell . . .?"  The rest will come.

But what I am noticing now, that I find really fun, is Sher Bear's writing.  She's 4 1/2 and fascinated by words.  She loves to make us cards - I get three or four a day from her.  She'll ask me, or her brother or sister for help making a letter or spelling a word.  Sometimes, I'll get the magnetic lowercase letters down from the frig to spell something for her.  And sometimes I'll write it out myself and let her copy.  I might even get a highlighter and write out the words in yellow for her to trace over.  But that's the extent of our lessons.  I don't "make" her write anything.  I don't even have any of that lined paper in the house.  But we go through a lot of plain white copypaper!

And I am loving seeing her creative spelling of words and her joy in the process.  She wants to write, and read because she sees her family writing and reading.  She is teaching herself - just like she taught herself to walk and to talk.  I don't correct her, I just enjoy her.  The developmental stage she is in now is so lovely.  It's just great fun to watch it unfold.

Wish you were here!

Graduation

Jor Man's Sand Tiger Shark poster

Last week the big kids "graduated" from both Aquarium School and Animal Academy.  This was our tenth month of going to Boston for classes once a month.  What an adventure!

I wasn't at all sure how this was going to work.  Afterall, as unschoolers, we are not in the habit of "making" our kids do their homework.  But both classes had final projects of a report and a poster about an animal.  Jor Man would (if he were in school) be in 4th grade.  So I imagine he might have such a project to do in 4th grade, although I don't remember writing reports until 6th grade.

Campster's Sea Horse poster

But Campster would be only in 1st grade, if she were in school!  So it seemed funny to me for her to "have to" write a report and do a poster.  In any case, neither child had ever done anything like this before.

Happily, both classes had assignments throughout the year which were much shorter and led up to the final projects.  I always told the kids what the homework was, and that they didn't have to do it.  Of course, I pointed out that the other kids in class would probably be doing the work.  I'd say something like, "So if you want to work on it, and you'd like help, I'm available this afternoon, and tomorrow morning.  But if you leave it until the last minute, I might not be free then."

Jor Man in front of his poster

Jor Man balked the most.  I just ignored it.  And by ignore it, I mean that I didn't get unhappy about it.  It wasn't easy.  I have strong "wishes" for my kids to "do well" and make me look good.  (Lovely!)  But I know that if I try to use unhappiness to motivate my kids to do what I want, they will learn to use unhappiness to try to motivate me to do what they want (whining, moping).

The posters were fun to do, and kind of got the ball rolling.  I can't say enough good things about repositionable spray adhesive.  Just don't let the kids use it themselves, unless you want your whole house to function like a post-it!

The reports were more of a challenge.  Like I said, Jor Man balked big time about doing the two-page report.  I chose to reframe it for him:  They had done a few shorter "reports" throughout the year of about a paragraph or two.  So we collected all of the ones about Sand Tiger Sharks (his aquarium animal) and photocopied them.

Jor Man with his TuaTara poster and report, and Campster with hers on Rabbits

Then we cut the photocopies up into sentences, and organized them by topic.  Some were about the animal's classification; some, the exhibit; and some were about what the animal ate.

We then sprayed a couple blank pieces of paper with spray adhesive, making huge post-its.  Then we placed the sentences in paragraphs.  Jor Man was able to see how a report is organized.  We added opening and closing paragraphs and he had his report!  When it came time to work on his Tuatara report, he knew what to do, and wrote it himself.

The Campster was excited to work on her poster and reports.  For Aquarium School, she chose Sea Horses as her animal.  Thankfully, she had an option to do either a report or a series of five cartoons.  She chose the cartoons.  It was really fun to see how creative she got with her cartoons.  They are all her own work.  I just coached her through the process.

For her report on Rabbits (her Animal Academy animal), Campster and I checked out books from the library.  I read portions of the books to her, and she would comment when there was something she wanted me to write down for the report.  We talked about how we need to write things in her own words.  

Campster and her friend holding Campster's "Cartoons" for her Sea Horse report

Then we took the notes and read them aloud.  Afterwards I asked her to dictate her report to me, and I would write it out.  She did a great job, no problem.

Jor Man discusses Sand Tiger Sharks with the President of the Aquarium

The classes, did a great job of celebrating the end of class and the kids' learning.  At the New England Aquarium, they had the kid's posters up and their reports out on display.  The administration of the Aquarium all took the time to come by and see what the kids had done.  Jor Man had an extended conversation about Sand Tiger Sharks with the President of the Aquarium.  Jor was very excited about this.

Wish you were here!

lowercase

The other day, I saw this on my fridge.  Campster was sad.  Apparently because I insisted that she finish the laundry before she went out to play. (Mean Mommy!!)  The laundry is next to the refrigerator.   So she made use of our lower-case magnetic letters to spell out her feelings.

She's okay.  But I wanted to take this opportunity to show off my fridge magnets.  I really like them.  Most letter magnets are capital letters.  And that is so confusing, as most of the letters that children read are lower case.  We very rarely line up capital letters in a row to spell a word.  RIGHT?

So if you get magnetic letters for your kids, be sure and get lower case ones.  I also got two sets because you run out of vowels too quickly otherwise.  They are too small to be safe for the under-three crowd.  If you have littles, you may want to keep your letters in a ziploc or a bin which you bring down and collect up all the letters afterwards.  Cookie sheets can make good magnet boards also.

Kids will often learn to read before their small motor skills are strong enough to make writing an enjoyable exercise.  Don't push the writing.  Kids will write when they want to write.  Giving them other ways to interact with letters and words can make reading a kinesthetic experience. Stamps with letters can be a fun way to write without writing.

We can't find the "v".  I'll bet it is under the washer.  Campster is resourceful!

Wish you were here!