Phonics

First of all I'd like to say that the spelling of phonics is ridiculous. The whole point is to sound out words by how they are spelled and if that were the case then it should be spelled fonics. Anyway, regardless of that we did some phonics work this evening. I pulled out a new book to work with. We worked on the letters B, C, D, P & T. I would point out what letter we were going to work on and then Alex would interrupt me to point out every B (C,D,P or T) on the page. She can't look at any random letter (except A & X) and tell you what it is, but when you show it to her she can find all the rest of them. So, on with the work... we said the letter, the sound it makes and a few words that start with that sound. Then we would look at pictures and name the object and decide if it started with that letter. She answered correctly for several objects and I thought he was brilliant until I realized she was saying no to everything. We just talked through it and did it together.
Emma wanted me to do work with her too, that is the hardest part. It is hard to do 2 things at once. So she colored while Alex & I worked and then we put the books up and played with big Legos. Alex built the tallest tower that she could and Emma and I worked on spatial descriptions. On top, under, beside, in, out, full, empty. Those were things she had trouble with on her speech eval this week. She liked 'under' the best because she got to put blocks under the bucket. For some reason they both thought that was fun.
About 6 we went to the bedroom to wind down because everybody was grumpy. We did flash cards for a while. I had to pull Emma's thumb out of her mouth to get her to talk, but she did participate. I tried to cater the cards to things Emma needs to work on. So, with the doggy card she had to point out all of its body parts. Things like that. Alex had a fun answer tonight. The flash card was an apple and I asked her, "How does an apply taste?" I expected the usual answer of, "Good." But instead she said, "Sweet." I was so proud that she was using a different adjective. I know that Heidi works on that in speech.
Alex is still doing awesome with her colors, Emma's answer for everything is still yellow. Emma doesn't always understand the difference between "What shape is this?" and "What color is this?" I guess that could be because so many teaching tools put the two together. I'll try to make a point to teach them separately.

Tuesday

Alex had ST, OT, and PT today. Emma had PT and then finished her speech eval. She just barely qualified for therapy, only a mild delay. Heidi is going to check on scheduling and get back with me. I'm fine with her getting therapy for that right now. If she needs it then great, but I have to say that I feel great knowing there is only a mild delay. I must also say that since she is 37 months old she has to be tested in the 36-41 month range. So there are many skills that she may have 4 months from now and just hasn't had time to reach yet.
We read books for about half and hour tonight. Alex loves Margaret Wise Brown books because they are fun for her to repeat and read along with me. We have 'The Runaway Bunny', 'My World' (her favorite), and 'Goodnight Moon'. Emma is continuing to take more and more interest in books and is able to sit still and hold her attention much longer than even a month ago.
Alex often leaves out little words in sentences. For example, she may say, "Emma wear nightgown." So tonight when I was getting them ready for bed we narrated each step and made a point to say, "Emma is wearing a nightgown." I would just say a few words at a time and emphasize the 'is' and 'a' and she was picking up on it and doing it great. Emma also participated in this some.

Monday

Good day today. The girls woke me up at 7:15 this morning and by 7:30 we had already eaten a bowl of cereal and were doing homework. We did a little bit on rhyming words, some counting, and number writing (with my hand over Alex's). One activity had pictures of kites with 4 letters in each section of the kite. 2 letters were random and 2 were an uppercase & lowercase of the same letter. I would point out the uppercase and ask Alex to find the lowercase of that letter. She did awesome with that. She also did a page where she had to find the object that didn't belong in the group. It wasn't too complicated, for instance there was a basket with 3 tomatoes and a shovel. She had to point out that the shovel didn't belong. She did great with that. Emma was hungry for attention and to be involved so I did a few pages with her also. We did a page of patterns. There were a row of flowers... one pink, one blue, one pink, fill in the blank. She was able to say what came next and I was so impressed. We drew the next picture in the sequence with my hand over hers. She was thrilled.
Alex had PT today and Emma started her new speech evaluation. She will finish it tomorrow. Since she has turned 3 there are a new set of standards and she may qualify for speech again. We'll see how the articulation test goes tomorrow.
This evening the girls wanted to play with some poster boards in the office. I've been trying to keep them away from them for weeks and tonight I realized I should let them have fun with them. So, being the cool mom that I am, I pulled out the markers and took off their new shirts so they could go to town. I drew their names in big letters and let them do whatever they wanted to it. They did some drawing and so did I. Alex wanted me to draw people, so we drew mommy, daddy, Alex & Emma. I would draw a circle for the head and she would tell me what to add. Emma got in on it, too. "What's next?" They would answer anything from eyes, nose, mouth, hair, ears, earrings, shirt, pants, shoes, etc. Emma wasn't able to name the parts of a car today during her evaluation, so we drew a car and talked about the parts. We sang different verses of 'The Wheels on the Bus' to go along with what we were talking about. We talked about where people sit in the car, who the driver is, where the wheels are, where the wind shield wipers are, why we use them, where little kids and babies sit, where the lights are, etc. I also drew a spider and we sang 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider'. Emma loves that song. Then we drew a house and Alex told me what it needed... windows, a door, etc. I traced their hands and we drew bracelets and rings on them.
By the time it was all over they were covered in marker and nothing could help but a bath.

Sunday

We seem to just do school work when we have the opportunity. There are days during the week that nothing gets done, but then there are days like today when we find ourselves snuggled on the couch doing workbook pages. Tonight we worked on identifying rhyming words. When we have an activity where you are supposed to color the correct pictures I found that it helps to put an 'X' on the wrong pictures. Alex has started doing that on her own. Just like with the rhyming exercise tonight... she was looking at pictures and had to decided if the word rhymed with 'mail'. She would say the word and then say, "no" and put an 'X' on it. I think she is beginning to understand the rhyming thing, but we still need to work on it. We did a few pages on sequencing, that is still really hard. We did some letter work also. She traced the letter 'S' and 's' on her own and was very proud. When she writes her name she uses all uppercase letters, but when we work on letter we always do uppercase and lowercase. We practice a few more letters with my hand over hers. 'm' and 'r'. I wrote 'Emma' and 'mommy' and we underlined the 'm' where appropriate. She liked that. Also worked on the number '2'. She needed my hand over hers for that also. She tried to do it on her own, but it just wasn't coming out right. We'll keep working. She loves to do mazes. The ones in her workbook are letters, tonight she had to follow the 'H' and 'h' to reach the end of the maze. She would get off track a little bit and then when I would ask her, "Is this an H?" she could tell me yes or no. She's definitely getting better.
I've also noticed that her coloring is getting better. She isn't completely precise, but in comparison to what she has done in the past she is beginning to stay more in the lines. Or at least she tries to, where in the past she would just scribble all over the entire page. Progress.
Emma likes to color these days, too. I notice that she is getting more control also. She can draw straight lines and kind of draw a circle. Her temper and lack of attention keeps us from getting too much formal work done, but I know she is picking up on things just from listening and watching what I do with Alex.
Emma is starting to pay more attention during reading time at night... especially if she hears a word she likes. For instance, if she hears the word 'monkey' she comes running and needs to see the picture. Then it may hold her attention for a little while. Alex still likes to repeat everything I read. I try to point out little things when we read, like the beginning and end of the book, the title page, etc. They both ask lots of questions, and I think that's great unless they are asking something that they already know. Lot's of times I turn the question back around to them.

Saturday

In the Highlight's magazine there is a section where you are supposed to find the silly things in the picture. Alex hasn't really grasped this before, but tonight when we were reading books she looked at something and said, "That's silly." And she was right. I love it when she catches on to something.

Friday

This morning the girls and I went to Lisa's to play. The girls played for about an hour and then we loaded up and took them to the Dogwood Festival downtown. It was fun and all 5 girls get along really well. The are so staggered in age. Mary Grace will be 6 next week, Alex is 5, Hannah just turned 4, Emma is 3, and Abigail is 1. It is interesting to see who plays with who. Hannah and Alex really play well together and Emma love Abigail. Mary Grace is kind of the mother hen and watches over everybody. It's sweet to watch.

Thursday

This morning Alex & I did her speech homework from Heidi. We worked on possessives. "Whose book is this?" "The girl's book." Things like that. I thought it was cute because one question was, "Whose house is this?" The answer was, "The dog's house." Alex articulated the 's' on dog's, and then she made a point to articulate the 'h' on house. Just like she and Heidi have been working on. Then we worked on these/they. "They are books. These are books." And so on.
After that we looked at their newest Highlight's magazine. We read the poems and stories and looked at the pictures. The Hidden Pictures in Highlights are really difficult. I have to help Alex find the hidden objects. They also have a section with a picture and you are supposed to find the silly things... like tennis balls on the pizza, or the girl wearing a super hero outfit.
This afternoon Emma had PT and Alex had ST, OT & PT.
Tomorrow we are going to the Dogwood festival with Lisa and her girls.

Wednesday

Busy day, not much school today. The girls stayed with Lisa this morning while I went to the bank. They got a chance to play with Mary Grace, Hannah, & Abigail. Lisa even did a science experiment with all the girls. They lit 3 birthday candles and put them out 3 different ways. They sprinkled water on the first one to make it go out. The second one they put a glass over the candle and watched it go out as the oxygen was used up. The third one burned until the wax was gone. I'm like Lisa, it's hard to say what they really get out of those experiments at this age, but they had fun and it surely can't hurt a thing. Thanks to Lisa for getting in some school time with her kids and mine!
Emma had OT today, Alex did not have PT because Alissa had a doctor appointment.
We went to church tonight so the girls got in some more good play time with the other kids. I'm actually not sure if there was a lesson tonight or if they just played.

Monday Morning

We've already been doing school work this morning. It started out casual when Emma brought me a princess book with a magna doodle on it. We started drawing the pictures in the book, then moved on to writing people's names. Then I started the letters. I did the writing and the girls identified the letter. Uppercase and lowercase. Alex can now recognize the letters A and X by herself! That is huge! Uppercase only for the A. She knows them because they are in her name. When I write Emma's name she says, "E, M" then she skips the second M and says, "A". I always have to remind her there are 2 M's. We are making progress though.
Then we read a few book and then did a few workbook pages on numbers. Alex was doing great with her fine motor skills this morning. She was circling things great, but then I guess she got tired because she switched to her left hand. I find it interesting that when she draws a circle with her right hand she goes to the right, and with her left hand she goes to the left. Is this normal?
We also did a few pages on patterns. When it is just 2 items in the pattern Alex can guess what will come next. Sometimes she can with 3, more than that we are working on.
This afternoon Alex has PT and Emma has OT.

Friday

Busy week, not much quality school time. However, last night Dottie went over Alex's speech homework with her. Alex loved that and it was good practice I'm sure. Tonight when we were reading books I had to go slow because Alex had to repeat every line of every book. It takes forever, but it has to be a good step towards reading. One book we read was, 'My World'. I took the time to work on possessives with Alex because the opportunity was there. She has been working on that in speech lately.
Tomorrow is Alissa's baby shower that the girls and I are hosting at our house. The girls will each have a special job to help with the party and they are so excited!

a little bit

We spent a little while doing school work this morning. We played with the wooden pattern beads and followed the pattern on the cards. Alex is good with the getting the colors right, but when the beads are slightly different shapes it is a little bit harder. Emma just practices putting beads on the sticks, it is good fine motor skills for both of them.
Then we went through the baby Einstein flash cards. They identified whatever object was on the card and then I followed the teaching tips on the back of the cards to ask questions, adding my own as we went. We did lots of what color is this?, what does this do?, what is this for?, what shape is this?, what sound does this make?, how many are there?... stuff like that. We also sang a few songs. Alex actually started that with the picture of a lamb, she started singing 'Mary had a little lamb'. So when we got to the star we sang 'twinkle twinkle little star'. I often have to pull Emma's thumb out of her mouth if I want her to answer a question.
This afternoon Alex has ST & PT and Emma has PT. Then they will go to Dottie's for the evening while Christin and I go to Russellville for a concert.

busy weekend

We spent Friday night through Tuesday morning at Ft. Sill with Drew. The girls had a million question about, "What is this? What is that?" etc. We did do some school work, but nothing on a regular basis. Being with Daddy for a few days was more important. One thing worth mentioning... the girls were playing with their play lap tops and Alex was doing ABC's. She hit the A and said, "Like my name." I was proud that she recognized that.
It's a crazy week ahead, but I'm sure we will squeeze some school time in here and there. We'll see.

Fun stuff... and educational, too!

We are at Ft. Sill with Drew this weekend. Today we went to the wildlife refuge and had so much fun. We drove up to the top of Mt. Scott and saw the beautiful view. Then we went to the Wildlife Refuge visitor's center and walked through the exhibits. It was amazing. We were there for fun, but you can't help but learn something when you're there. Lots to look at and some stuff to touch and play with. The girls got to play with different antlers and horns from the elk and long horns. They got to feel the fur of a racoon, cyote, bison & Fox. Alex was interested in armadillos and got to touch the shell and learn how they have a hard shell kind of like a turtle to keep them safe. After we spent a while there we drove further into the refuge to see the real animals. We saw buffalo and long horns and then went on to the prarie dogs. They really loved that so much... and so did I!
So today didn't consist of writing letters, but was very educational.

Oops

I failed to blog last night about the girls' school work. We did a lot of work on sequencing and critical thinking. We did a little work on letters and numbers. Alex needed encouragement to finish these things that were difficult. Then we played a game. I printed this page off the internet of people of different professions. (surgeon, vet, ballerina, etc) We cut the pictures in half and they had to match the top with the bottom. We also used that time to talk about what the different people do. When Emma was in OT Alex and I did homework in the lobby. We did her speech therapy homework and practiced saying words that have the 'h' sound. She can do it in isolation, but has to think about doing it in conversation. We also practice answering, "What is this for" questions. She did great.
This morning we had a play date with my friend Angie and her daughter Brooke. The girls played very well together. They colored some and we played with the wooden beads to make patterns. We read books and then Emma and I did a little workbook stuff on what is the same and what matches.
This afternoon Emma has PT and Alex has speech, OT, & PT. Nothing else big planned for the night, maybe some more games or workbook pages if the girls have the patience and energy left. Tomorrow we are taking my dad to his foot surgery in the morning. I will take homework to do while we wait. After he is home and settled we are heading to Ft. Sill to be with Drew. We will take homework stuff with us to do when we have time. We also plan to take the girls to the wildlife refuge, that will be a great 'field trip'.

Tuesday

We had several days of not much school. It was the weekend and then yesterday was my birthday and we were in Fayetteville.
This morning we had some workbook time. We tried to work on sequencing, that is difficult, but we talked through it. Continued counting... counting is easy, but number recognition is still non existent. We will keep working. We searched for different shapes in pictures. We also spent some time working on patterns. We go over the pattern and Alex fills in what comes next. She does okay with this. Then some time on critical thinking... What do you think will happen next? If this goes with this, what goes with this? That sort of thing.
Alex had Speech and PT today. Emma had PT.
Before bed tonight we spent some time reading. The girls have been learning the Lord's Prayer for a while and Alex is actually pretty good. Emma knows parts and chimes in when she knows the next word or line. Tonight we read the Little Golden Book, Prayers for Children. One page has the Doxology. I don't think they've really heard that much since we don't say it in church every Sunday. Instead of reading it we sang it, that is the way I learned it. They were interested in that and I think they may pick up on it quickly. There is a prayer/poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson that Alex really liked. It is called Father, We Thank Thee. Every time I would read a line Alex would say, "Father, we thank thee." It was cute. My favorite prayer in the book is called The Child's Prayer, but I've decided that if we all lived and prayed this way that the world would be a better place. I am going to make it a permanent post on this blog and read it to the girls often.

Friday

This morning Alex & I spent well over an hour doing workbook pages. I realize that some children are bored by this, but she has enough of me in her to like doing this sort of work. I have a Fisher Price preschool workbook from Nancy and it is really great. The illustrations are great and the activities are appropriate and to understand. The first few pages had dots outlining different animals. Alex has tremors in her body, especially her hands, that make fine motor skills very difficult... but she did this so well all by herself! I am so proud of her that I had to include pictures. She did this completely independent with her right hand. It isn't perfect, but it is very good!



We practiced tracing some letters and numbers, but her hands were very shaky from other tracing, so we we did it with my hand over hers.
Visual discrimination is hard for Alex unless it is something really obvious. This workbook had practice pages with 4 of the same object, one being in a different position. VERY hard. We talked through it and I pointed out how they are different and she circled the appropriate one. Another page focused on noticing details. In a small box was a detail of a larger picture, and she was supposed to find the detail in the larger picture and circle it. She did pretty well with this. We used to do mazes hand over hand and I did most of the guiding, but today she did the guiding and did very well. I think she is getting the hang of that. Connect the dots (from number to number or letter to letter) is also difficult. We also usually do this hand over hand, but today she tried a little bit by herself. It's getting better. She is pretty good at drawing vertical and horizontal lines, as well as slanted lines. Curved lines are more difficult, but she is getting much better, she just has to build some confidence there. When given 2 pictures of different sizes, she can point out the larger or smaller one, but when you add in a 3rd she has difficult understanding which is in the middle. This is something Heidi (speech therapist) has also noticed and is working on. More or less is also a difficult concept that we have been working on. She can count how many items are in each group, but doesn't understand which one is more.
Oh, while Alex & I are working Emma usually sits beside me (and crawls all over me). We make sure to take breaks to read a book Emma has picked. I am getting better at juggling both girls while doing school work.
This afternoon we took my dad to the podiatrist and did some more work in the waiting room. Both of the girls wrote on their dry erase books. Emma mostly scribbled, Alex traced letters (with encouragement). She is getting so much better! Alex can also write her first name and tell you what her last name is. Emma always wants me to write her name. I write the E, she says, "E". I write the M, she says, "M". Then she skips the second M and goes straight to the A! I have to remind her that there are 2 M's. Writing Emma's name always leads to her asking me to write Alex's name, then every other person she can think of.
At bed time we read a few books, then pulled out "My Goodnight Book". Alex usually 'reads' it, but the last few night Emma has also started telling the story. I'm so impressed!

Busy Thursday

Thursdays are usually busy for us because we typically go to Fayetteville to see my grandparents and then the girls have a full afternoon of therapy. That is how it went today. Grandpa bought the girls each a cute little purse and gave them a $2 bill to put in it. You would think they were millionaires, they couldn't be happier. Oh, and neither could he :) We stayed there for an hour or so and then headed home for lunch. Then quiet time. At 2:15 I took the girls to therapy. Emma had an hour of PT today. Alex had Speech, then OT & PT. Emma and I hung out together while Alex was in OT & PT. I got a new Highlights hidden pictures magazine in the mail today, so we did that. It is really quite difficult for the preschool age, I think so anyway. But we did look at the pictures and talk about different things. Then we did an ABC puzzle. We dumped all the pieces out and Emma would look at the pile, put her finger to her mouth and say, "Hmm...", then she would pick a letter and we would find where it went. She particularly likes "L" & "T" because they have a lion & a tiger under the letter. She kept going back to the "T" and yelling, "TIGER! ROAR!" This evening we had dinner, then they played silly in the bathtub. We spent about 30 minutes laying in the floor of their room reading books, like we always do.
Tomorrow we have a play date with the Green girls, I really love that all 5 of the girls get along so well. I have an activity planned for us to do together for our school time, I'm looking forward to it.

Money, money, money, money

Alex didn't have therapy today so we did our school time together while Emma was doing her occupational therapy. We took her piggy bank to the clinic with us and sat in the floor to dump it out. We sorted out the pennies and then stacked them in piles of 10. I made Alex use the pincer grasp to pick them up one at a time and that was frustrating for her because it was harder than picking up a handful... but she did it. Then we put the penny piles back into the piggy bank one pile at a time and practiced counting by tens. She picked up on that very quickly. Then we looked at the difference between the quarter, nickel, and dimes and then counted them. That gave us the chance to count by 5's and 10's, and then to put the quarters in groups of 4. Good math practice, now on to the bank. She carried her piggy bank in as proud as she could be. She gave it to the teller and we we talked about how we put our extra money in the piggy bank until we get a lot, then we take it to the bank so it will be safe. She was fine with that, but she wanted her piggy back! The ladies were so proud of her and gave her some candy and let her pick a treasure from the toy box.
I didn't really know if anyone was reading this blog, it is mainly for me to keep track of our progress. But, there have been several of you reach out to offer schooling resources and I really appreciate that. Thank you all for your help and support.

Great school day

The girls and I did lots of school worthy work today. Alex practiced tracing letters in her workbook for a good while and is getting much better and a little bit more confident. We also spent a while on numbers. We played the Thomas Tic Tac Toe game over and over. They didn't really grasp the concept of the game, but we did take turns, use fine motor skills to fit the pieces into the board, and count the pieces when they got three in a row. We played with Baby Einstein flash cards, too. I followed the teaching recommendations on the back of each card that incorporates each concept into things the kids understand. For example... we didn't just identify shapes, we searched for things that were that shape in their room. The same with colors. Lots of counting, identifying numbers, picking out things that are different/same, etc.
They spent some time playing in their room before lunch, listening to the CDs of learning songs that Carrie burned for them. I think free play is just as important at this age as anything else.
They have also been playing ring around the rosy this week. They hold hands and stagger around the living room singing the song and then they both fall down. It's lots of fun until it gets too rough and somebody gets hurt.
Of course we will spend about half an hour reading before they go to bed.
The last week or so the question about where Daddy is has given the opportunity to look at the map and see where Daddy is and talk about where we live. Alex can tell you that Daddy lives in Oklahoma right now and that we live in Arkansas. I'm not going to go into any more depth as far as our address goes right now since it may change if we sell the house soon.