Did you know that in the morning when a child is fresh and wide awake they can read? Did you know that in the evening when they are tired and worn out they forget how to read? I should have remembered this fact when I decided that baby would show off her reading skills to her Dad. She started out all right, well she got the first three words. Then she started looking around, trying to guess her words and just basically getting tired of reading.
We just changed it to reading one page instead of two and Mom helped her out lots. It is so important that they have successful experiences and feel good about the whole reading ordeal. Believe me I have done it both ways, and the positive way is much superior to the yelling, threatening and guilting them into reading.
That is a really bad admission, but hey it is true. I have even been known to a little bop when they were learning the "ow" and "ou" sounds :)
Monday, April 12, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
New Friends
Baby is making new friends at school this year. One of the friends she has made lives real close to us. The most interesting part is her friend is Nica or Nicaraguan. We have found the Nica's to be very friendly here, and a little more apt to invite you into their lives and homes. Today we walked home a different way so baby could see where her friend lives. Turns out their family live in a little guard house on the property that the new Chinese department store is on. We like to take baby to the store so she can practice her Mandarin. There are many Chinese supers here that we have visited and met cool people for her to talk to.
We met one Chinese lady at a Chinese super around the corner that wanted baby to play with her daughter. Her daughter is a couple of years younger and they did not hit it off really well. The cool part was the Mom gave baby a beautiful Chinese dress before we left. Baby loves to wear it and looks like a princess.
Teeny is also doing a first for her this weekend. A whole group of kids from church and the neighborhood all went up into the mountains to do some camping tonight. I am thinking they are going to freeze, but we will see how it goes.
We met one Chinese lady at a Chinese super around the corner that wanted baby to play with her daughter. Her daughter is a couple of years younger and they did not hit it off really well. The cool part was the Mom gave baby a beautiful Chinese dress before we left. Baby loves to wear it and looks like a princess.
Teeny is also doing a first for her this weekend. A whole group of kids from church and the neighborhood all went up into the mountains to do some camping tonight. I am thinking they are going to freeze, but we will see how it goes.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
A Day Late....
Today baby started reading lessons at her school. I am frustrated because I really wanted to have her reading well in English before she began her Spanish reading. I guess it will just slow things down a bit, but at least she will have it down. She is getting very apprehensive about her teacher having to leave to have her baby. We will see how that goes.
Teeny actually worked for money today. We have been cracking down on her to work for her money instead of just asking and expecting it. She actually scrubbed all the tile floors in the house, which would be all the floors. She has also completed her time being demo dog for our massage student. She worked this afternoon doing reports on all the conference talks. Of course that was a bribe. Fill in all the reports of the talks from conference and get a new cell phone battery.
She has really enjoyed having our student here. They get along well and she gets to speak in English, I think sometimes she misses that.
Last night she received a real wake-up call, so to speak. Her and her fellow "band" members were sitting on the curb up the street. A black car with no plates drove by slowly and scoped them out. The car turned around when one of the other kids answered his cell phone, dumb move. All the others yelled at him and they all took off running when the car turned around to come back.
The kids all hid at the end of our street waiting for the car to leave. They did not leave, just parked and waited. In the meantime teeny has all the cell phones crammed into her boots, like they would not look there. The kids waited awhile and finally decided to make a run for our house. Right as Hannah reached in to unlock the gate the car came whipping by, they took off when they saw her come in the gate.
Her friends sprinted for the park and scrambled over the fence to hide out and wait until the guys got tired of waiting and left. After talking to the neighbor he said the police were looking for a black car but that it had not been out before midnight before and this was nine.
I have always said we would stay in Costa Rica as long as we felt it was safe to do so. When my 22 yr old got robbed at gun point for his cell phone in San Jose we could rationalize. It was after midnight, he was alone and talking on his cell phone downtown San Jose after drinking too much! This one I just can't quite ignore or blame on the kids.
Got some thinking to do for sure. In Central America they shoot kids for cell phones. A neighbor kid who was just right around the corner from us got shot in the chest and killed for his cell phone. He was 19 years old! Today my daughter wrote me from Hondurus that a 13 year old girl had been stabbed to death on the bus for her cell phone. As the economy gets worse the crime rate is spiraling. Like I said we have some thinking to do for sure.
Teeny actually worked for money today. We have been cracking down on her to work for her money instead of just asking and expecting it. She actually scrubbed all the tile floors in the house, which would be all the floors. She has also completed her time being demo dog for our massage student. She worked this afternoon doing reports on all the conference talks. Of course that was a bribe. Fill in all the reports of the talks from conference and get a new cell phone battery.
She has really enjoyed having our student here. They get along well and she gets to speak in English, I think sometimes she misses that.
Last night she received a real wake-up call, so to speak. Her and her fellow "band" members were sitting on the curb up the street. A black car with no plates drove by slowly and scoped them out. The car turned around when one of the other kids answered his cell phone, dumb move. All the others yelled at him and they all took off running when the car turned around to come back.
The kids all hid at the end of our street waiting for the car to leave. They did not leave, just parked and waited. In the meantime teeny has all the cell phones crammed into her boots, like they would not look there. The kids waited awhile and finally decided to make a run for our house. Right as Hannah reached in to unlock the gate the car came whipping by, they took off when they saw her come in the gate.
Her friends sprinted for the park and scrambled over the fence to hide out and wait until the guys got tired of waiting and left. After talking to the neighbor he said the police were looking for a black car but that it had not been out before midnight before and this was nine.
I have always said we would stay in Costa Rica as long as we felt it was safe to do so. When my 22 yr old got robbed at gun point for his cell phone in San Jose we could rationalize. It was after midnight, he was alone and talking on his cell phone downtown San Jose after drinking too much! This one I just can't quite ignore or blame on the kids.
Got some thinking to do for sure. In Central America they shoot kids for cell phones. A neighbor kid who was just right around the corner from us got shot in the chest and killed for his cell phone. He was 19 years old! Today my daughter wrote me from Hondurus that a 13 year old girl had been stabbed to death on the bus for her cell phone. As the economy gets worse the crime rate is spiraling. Like I said we have some thinking to do for sure.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Order of Letters
After you have taught "M" I would begin on S. That is another fun one and you can use sssssnakes to help teach them how to make it. I forgot to mention when you are trying to help remember the M you can teach mountains. They have a good m begining and an "M" looks like a mountain. Likewise a S looks like a snake, which is what it starts with.
The next letter would be "B". That is another fun one and you can incorporate bubbles into that one. It kind of looks like a couple of bubbles yeah? After "B" we will begin working in some sight words the kids will need to know for reading simple books.
At this point they should be able to read mmmmm about something that looks good to eat. They should be able to say the "sss" sound when they see "s" in a book. The best thing for you to do is read to them. When you are reading let them make the begining sounds they know up to this point. If you are lucky they are starting to put things together and see how this letter thing works.
The problem we are having right now is with learning to read in English and Spanish at the same time. They are a little later to teach reading here in CR, but baby is learning her vowels at her school and keeps getting them confused with English vowels. I just have to keep reminding her, yes that is in Spanish, but we are learning to read in English right now. She is getting it, just a little slower than she would if everyone around here was speaking English.
The next letter would be "B". That is another fun one and you can incorporate bubbles into that one. It kind of looks like a couple of bubbles yeah? After "B" we will begin working in some sight words the kids will need to know for reading simple books.
At this point they should be able to read mmmmm about something that looks good to eat. They should be able to say the "sss" sound when they see "s" in a book. The best thing for you to do is read to them. When you are reading let them make the begining sounds they know up to this point. If you are lucky they are starting to put things together and see how this letter thing works.
The problem we are having right now is with learning to read in English and Spanish at the same time. They are a little later to teach reading here in CR, but baby is learning her vowels at her school and keeps getting them confused with English vowels. I just have to keep reminding her, yes that is in Spanish, but we are learning to read in English right now. She is getting it, just a little slower than she would if everyone around here was speaking English.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
II Teaching Reading
After the first five weeks now you all are rolling along on those vowels. Next step would be to throw in some fun consonants. I usually begin with M. That is a really fun one to teach, as it can be a word into itself. For example the first day we may go out for a yummy treat to eat. As we are eating I say "MMMM, this is so good". That is their first exposure to beginning sounds of words. Usually we only spend two or three days on the consonant sounds.
Day one we would make an art project with the "M". Again be creative and use something you both love. It could even be pretzels shaped like an "M" if you both like cooking.
Day two would be cutting out pictures of "M" words. Try to make very obvious ones that have lots of m sound.
Day three would be sounding out a list of words with all the vowels following "m". The really cool thing is you can say they are reading at this point. All you have to do is have them take a picture of someone eating something yummy and write "MMMMMM" underneath it as the caption. That introduces the kids to the idea that all sounds go together to make a word that actually means something.
They will not just click at this point, that takes may hours of them reading before they actually get this concept. If any of your children have ADD as one of ours did, pretty bad in fact, you may have to change things up a bit.
With our son he did not get reading until he was well into six. In fact it did not click for him until he started piano lessons. Something about reading the music finally did for him what reading practice could not seem to do.
Again take your time, they will get it eventually!
Monday, April 5, 2010
Teaching Reading
I have lots of people ask me how to teach reading to their children, so thought I would give a step by step guide this week. You don't have to have anything fancy, in fact you can make all your own supplies and not buy a single thing.
The first step will be teaching them to recognize the sounds of the letters. Start with the vowels. AEIOU should be the first sounds they learn. I don't teach them the long vowels until they have learned all the sounds. Just the short vowels to start with.
How to do this?
The first week will be A week. Monday I would make a collage with a big and little A. They could make a noodle collage, or even just multi colored paper torn into small pieces glued onto the big and little a. Or make a bean collage, we have done that one.
Tuesday I would let them make a A necklace. Help them draw and cut out a big and little A and string it on a necklace. Of course all the time you are saying A and talking about different words that begin with the sound.
Wednesday I would take a bunch of old newspapers or magazines and cut out all the A words you can find and put them in their A booklet.
Thursday I would have them color a picture of A and several items that begin with A.
Friday I would have them practice writing big and little A's in their A notebook on lined paper.
By the end of the week they will know A. The next week go to E and so on until after five weeks they will know their vowels. I will give you some tips for the following weeks manana.
The first step will be teaching them to recognize the sounds of the letters. Start with the vowels. AEIOU should be the first sounds they learn. I don't teach them the long vowels until they have learned all the sounds. Just the short vowels to start with.
How to do this?
The first week will be A week. Monday I would make a collage with a big and little A. They could make a noodle collage, or even just multi colored paper torn into small pieces glued onto the big and little a. Or make a bean collage, we have done that one.
Tuesday I would let them make a A necklace. Help them draw and cut out a big and little A and string it on a necklace. Of course all the time you are saying A and talking about different words that begin with the sound.
Wednesday I would take a bunch of old newspapers or magazines and cut out all the A words you can find and put them in their A booklet.
Thursday I would have them color a picture of A and several items that begin with A.
Friday I would have them practice writing big and little A's in their A notebook on lined paper.
By the end of the week they will know A. The next week go to E and so on until after five weeks they will know their vowels. I will give you some tips for the following weeks manana.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Nurses
Well we have ruled out the medical profession for the teen and it is a maybe for baby. When my back freaked out and spasmed last night both of them were a little put out at being woke up by Mom screaming and crying. Baby I can understand as I was crawling over her to get to her dad so he could make the pain go away or just knock me out or something. Ah the joys of the family bed!
When I got a little shocky, covered with sweat and spacey teen asked me to close my eyes because it was "freaking her out". O.k. bedside manner a complete wash. She is out tonight auditioning for the rock band she wants to sing with. One of the boys dad's was apparently famous for winning a guitar contest in Argentina. That is enough to make you famous in Costa Rica by the way. So when they found out she sings, and she speaks English, which is what they sing in they were really excited.
She did say she would have to get a t-shirt that say's "I am famous in Costa Rica". One of the great things about being raised in a small country.
The customs kind of get the best of us sometimes also. Teen decided it would be a funny April Fools joke (which baby calls "apricot day") to post on facebook that she had been to the doc and was having a beautiful girl. She even posted an ultrasound pic with it. The problem came when all her friends from Costa Rica started leaving comments and congratulating her. One was her ex-boyfriend's cousin. Now she is trying to figure out how to explain it to all of them. She figured she would tell them her brother wrote it!
When I got a little shocky, covered with sweat and spacey teen asked me to close my eyes because it was "freaking her out". O.k. bedside manner a complete wash. She is out tonight auditioning for the rock band she wants to sing with. One of the boys dad's was apparently famous for winning a guitar contest in Argentina. That is enough to make you famous in Costa Rica by the way. So when they found out she sings, and she speaks English, which is what they sing in they were really excited.
She did say she would have to get a t-shirt that say's "I am famous in Costa Rica". One of the great things about being raised in a small country.
The customs kind of get the best of us sometimes also. Teen decided it would be a funny April Fools joke (which baby calls "apricot day") to post on facebook that she had been to the doc and was having a beautiful girl. She even posted an ultrasound pic with it. The problem came when all her friends from Costa Rica started leaving comments and congratulating her. One was her ex-boyfriend's cousin. Now she is trying to figure out how to explain it to all of them. She figured she would tell them her brother wrote it!
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