Journals

How can kids go from screaming at each other to best friends so fast?

Sparkle and Glitter are looking over Glitter's journal. Sparkle is asking Glitter about all the scribbles and Glitter is explaining them to her. A streak of red becomes a fire. There are pictures of the mom and dad. Another page becomes people jumping around. I don't see any of it, but somehow Sparkle is able to make sense out of the random marks and Glitter is proud to show off.


Then, when they get to the end of Glitter's journal, Sparkle asks Glitter if she wants to look at her journal. So, they put away Glitter's journal and bring out Sparkle's.

Last Two Nature Walks

Our last two nature walks provided lots of excitement.

Two weeks ago the girls got to see newly hatched moths.



Last week one of the workers at the gardens pointed out a snake in a tree.

Glitter wears dresses

For the past year Glitter has worn pants and shorts. When she started potty training, I put away all of her dresses so that her clothes would be easier for her to manage when going potty. Yet, somehow at her tender age, she realized that Sparkle and I wear dresses most of the time and she wanted dresses too.

Now that Glitter is growing out of her clothes, I pulled the next size of clothing out of storage for her, including the dresses that Sparkle once wore.

Phonogram Game

I've gotten to a good resting point in my GameMaker game. I've been working on it for almost three weeks, and it has come a long way. My brothers (long time professional programmers) would probably cringe at my coding, but I'm extremely proud of it. The graphics aren't fancy, but the functionality is what I envisioned.



Sparkle was the first to test the program (an earlier version).



I showed an earlier version of the program to another homeschooling mom on Tuesday. My fingers were crossed because until then I had only shown it to Sparkle and Wander. When the other mom first saw it, she instantly knew what it was for and wanted to know how to get it.

The idea behind this little computer program is to spell words using Orton-Gillingham phonograms. A phonogram is letter or set of letters which represent a sound. To spell a word, you identify the individual sounds in the word, and then write the corresponding phonogram for each sound. Several spelling programs use this approach, including The Writing Road to Reading by Romalda Spalding, Spell to Write and Read by Wanda Sanseri, and All-About-Spelling by Marie Rippel.

These spelling programs also recommend starting with a young child - kindergarten age. However, many young children aren't up to handwriting a long list of spelling words. Some homeschool parents use Scrabble tiles or magnetic letters to spell words. However, physical tiles are easily lost and mixed up. Physical tiles also provide a limited supply of each letter. Cheap tiles also are usually available only for the alphabet, not phonograms.

So, here's my program. All of the phonograms are represented. There is an unlimited supply of each phonogram. The tiles are always sorted and never lost. The child doesn't have to do any handwriting. There are upper and lower case letters. Each tile is sized to fit the number of letters in the phonogram.

BraveWriter

I made the BraveWriter blog!

Last week, the writer Julie Bogart posted a call for teatime photos on her blog and offered little freebie in return. So, I cobbled together a few photos from my blog and pulled together a blurb to go with it and submitted it. In return I got a free issue of her language arts tool "The Arrow." I picked a random issue, even though Sparkle and Glitter are way too young for it, but hey, it was free. Later I was browsing the web site and realized that I should have asked for her Arrow Fairytale Guide, as that is for kids age 4-12. Oh well. I guess I'll have to do without. Somehow the idea of paying $9.95 for seven pages of digital content just doesn't seem like a good investment.

Glitter narrates

Tonight's read aloud was the last chapter of "Elmer and the Dragon." Oddly enough, I found myself shushing Sparkle for interrupting the story, instead of Glitter. Normally Glitter's active hands and voice find ways to block the story. She'd want to linger over minuscule details in the pictures, or thrill to repeatedly find the letter "a" in the text. I know that I ought to delight at her enjoyment of the book, but I'm not that good a mom and I just want to be able to relax and enjoy the book, so I tell her to "be quiet and listen."

After I finished the book, Glitter announced, "I listened!" I figured that she's got "being quiet" confused with "listening," as I didn't hold much hope for her actually paying attention to the story. While Sparkle would give animated recaps of previous chapters during bath time, Glitter's discussion of the books have been more aggravating. Her observations are more about what's going on in her silly head than what happened in the book. For example, "What animal did they meet?" would be answered with "a horse" when there were no horses anywhere in the book. "Where did they go?" would be answered "under my blanket." So, I was quite satisfied with Glitter simply being quiet and praised her for "listening."

Then just as Sparkle and I started reminiscing about the chapter, Glitter offered up her opinion on what happened in the story. "I know what happened! Elmer and the Dragon went home!" Wow. No horses or chickens. No blankets or corners of the room. That's exactly what happened. She must actually be paying attention.

How I taught Sparkle to read

When Sparkle was almost four, the dad of one of her playmates mentioned he wanted to teach his almost five year old daughter to read. He wasn't quite sure what plan he was going to use, but he was very enthusiastic about the idea. I asked him to let me know what he did, as I'd probably try the same thing with Sparkle in a year.

The dad's ideas were in the back of my mind when I stumbled across an ancient copy of "The Ready-to-Read, Ready-to-Count Handbook" at the library, and I checked it out. It was a quick read and an eye opener, because it talked about teaching children as young as three to read. Suddenly my daughter wasn't too young to learn how to read.

However, as much as I liked the book, it didn't feel quite right to me. Not wanting to invest in a learn to read program without more information, I started looking at more learn-to-read resources at the library. I checked out the ever-present "Learn to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" book from the library. I read the reviews on Amazon and heard of more learn-to-read titles. I found "Phonics Pathways," "Reading Made Easy," "Reading Reflex," "Bob Books," and "Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading," and I checked all of them out from the library. I liked the idea of teaching reading, but all of the programs seemed like too much work or too boring - flashcards, covering up pictures, long lists of words, rhyming drills, funky type, etc.

Then I in my searching, I came across the title "The Reading Lesson" by Michael Levin and Charan Langton ( http://www.readinglesson.com/.) It sounded great - like 100EZ Lessons, but without the funky type. My library had only one copy of the book, and there was a long list of people who already had it on hold. So, I put it on hold and waited several months until it was my turn. In the meantime, I got the LeapFrog "Letter Factory" and "Word Factory" movies and let my daughter watch them while I cooked supper.

When the book finally arrived, I loved the look of it. It combined my favorite parts from all the other reading programs that I had looked at.

• The pages are uncluttered. There are a few small pictures or one big picture per page. All the text the student sees is text for the student to read.
  
• The text starts very large, and gradually gets smaller.
  
• The book uses a special typography to indicate what vowel sound to use and letters that work together, like "th" "sh" and "ch." But the special typography is faint and doesn't obscure the normal letter shape.
  
• The program is open and go. Just open the book and start reading. No flashcards, no chalkboard/whiteboard. No pre-reading instructions. No looking for readers. No games to setup or put away.
  
• The student has to actually figure out each word. The pictures are few enough that they can't be used to guess the words. In general, words aren't listed with all the same ending sound. There is a new page to read each day, so the student can't just memorize the text.
  
• The book includes sentences and full stories for the student to read from almost the beginning. The stories are cute for a young reader. No separate readers required.
  
• There is no handwriting.

However, I was still skeptical. Could reading a page a day from such an inexpensive book turn my daughter into a reader? I hadn't bothered trying any of the other learn-to-read books with my daughter, but I decided to give "The Reading Lesson" a try.

My daughter loved it. She flew through the first several pages, probably because she had the LeapFrog videos memorized. The date for returning the book to the library loomed, and I was finally ready to put some money into teaching reading and bought my own copy.

Over the months we developed a "you read to me, I'll read to you" approach to the "The Reading Lesson." She'd read page or two to me, then she'd run to get a book for me to read to her. The whole process took less than fifteen minutes a day, about three days a week. Some days she struggled to do one page. Other days she'd zoom through two pages. In the summer, I signed her up for the library's summer reading program, and she read her own books. On busy weeks, we'd skip "The Reading Lesson" completely, then jumped back in when things calmed down.

About a year after we started, we finally finished "The Reading Lesson." My daughter had already long since been reading other books from the library. We took her to her favorite restaurant to celebrate, and I tucked "The Reading Lesson" away to save for her younger sister.

The Power of Having to Pee

I've started having Sparkle do daily timed math drill worksheets. When she is done I point out any problems that need correcting and write the time at the top of the page. She usually doesn't need any corrections because she has the abacus in front of her to help her with any problems that she doesn't know.

She doesn't mind being timed, in part because I don't do anything with the time but write it down. She actually enjoys pushing the buttons on the timer herself. I've noticed that at the beginning of the week, the problems are done quickly, but as the week goes on, she gets slower. Monday's problems might take only two minutes, but Wednesday's problems would be over four minutes.



Today just before starting the worksheet, she announced that she wanted to go potty. Sensing that she was stalling, I told her she needed to do the worksheet first, and that would give her extra incentive to do the worksheet quickly. I also figured that five years old is old enough to exercise bladder control. She got to work and was done in record time. I could hear her mumbling the addition strategies that she had learned from RightStart Math under her breath. When she was done, she pranced off, and not in the direction of the bathroom. I had to remind her that she had wanted to go potty.

Dentist visit

Today was my dentist appointment. I scheduled it so that Glitter was in preschool at the time, but I had to take Sparkle with me.

Sparkle was very well behaved at the dentist and the people at the office were very friendly to her. The receptionist asked her how old she was, and after hearing the answer, the receptionist asked me if I homeschooled. I guess that I need to get used to the question. Before when we were out and about she was younger and I didn't get the questions. However, this was twice in one week. (Earlier it was at the library.)

I don't like going to the dentist, but I had to set a good example for Sparkle. Sparkle had brought a book to read while waiting, but was more interested in watching what was happening to my teeth. I prompted her to ask any questions she had, and she asked the hygienist about the mirror. I would have never guess that was what she found so fascinating. I was glad she asked when the hygienist explained the varied ways that she uses the mirror. Not only does she use it to look in the far corners of the mouth, she also uses it to reflect light, guide the tongue, and hold back the cheek. It is a multi-purpose tool. (It reminded me of when I took an applique class and learned that a sewing needle is a multi-purpose tool that can be used for much more than just dragging thread through fabric.)

So, I'm counting this as "science / health" for our homeschool for the day.

Anyway, no cavities today. They tried to get me to have sealants put on my teeth, but didn't try very hard. I think that it's just standard procedure for them to recommend it. But insurance wouldn't cover it and when I asked for more information it sounded like there was no impending reason to have it done.

Nature walk

Today we got to see two newly hatched moths. Last week we went into the building at the gardens and the workers there told us about two cocoons they had in an observation box by the window to their office. They told us how another little came every week to see them. They told us that we could get hummingbird hand stamps every time we visited. So, this week we went to visit them and got a special treat. The two moths had hatched.

The moths were huge and beautiful. The worker told us that they could tell they were male moths because of the feathery antennae. Sure enough we could see the little feathery lines poking off the antennae. The moths were mostly brown and white. They had white crescent moon shapes on the wings.

The lady who gave out hand stamps had stepped out for a moment, but Glitter wanted to wait until she came back to get a hand stamp. While we were waiting Sparkle drew a picture of the two moths, including the feathery antennae.

School Reading

I'm struggling with what to do with Sparkle for reading. She done with basic phonics instruction in how to decode words. The McGuffey reader was nice, but after a while I felt that the stories didn't do much for me. I'm thinking of introducing a content subject, like history, and having her read and narrate the textbook for her reading.

April Readaloud

Previously I tried listing our readalouds in two long posts that I periodically updated: one for lunchtime listening and another for the bedtime book. I decided that updating a single post wasn't working. So, I'm trying something new. I'm going to try a monthly post with our lunchtime listening and bedtime book.

Lunchtime Listening: The Blue Fairy Book
We finished "The Blue Fairy Book". For more info, see the previous lunchtime listening post.

Lunchtime Listening: A Little Princess (In Progress, chapter 5?)
This book is from Librivox. The book is by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the same author who wrote "The Secret Garden" which we listened to earlier (although Sparkle no longer remembers hearing it). Part of the reason I chose this book was because it is also read by Kara Shallenberg. It's relaxing to return to her voice after some of the more jarring readers in The Blue Fairy Book. Another reason that I'm reworking how I blog about our readalouds is because I'm trying out listening to the story directly on the computer, instead of first downloading it onto the iPod.
Update: listening to the story directly on the computer isn't working out. I'm downloading the story to the iPod.

Bedtime Book: Elmer and the Dragon
We are continuing "Elmer and the Dragon". For more info, see the previous bedtime book post. The chapters have been just the right length. The story isn't quite as whimsical and captivating as "My Father's Dragon." Glitter has gotten really good at listening quietly and is actually starting to pay attention.

Bedtime Book: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (In Progress)
I wasn't sure what bedtime book I'd do next. My original plan was to go on to "The Dragons of Blueland," but Sparkle said that she wanted to read it herself. I was leaning towards "The Wizard of Oz" or "A Bear Called Paddington." Oz won out because Sparkle wanted to know what a Munchkin was. I happened across a nice oversized paperback version of the book that has large type (because Sparkle likes to follow along) and pictures on every page (for Glitter). The book is quite different from the movie with Judy Garland. This is one of the few cases where I like the movie despite the massive changes from the book. (I'm also enjoying the book.)

Lenten Crown of Thorns, revisited

I think that the Lenten Crown of Thorns that I tried out this year was a mixed success.

The girls really liked getting to pull out a toothpick from the crown when they did something especially nice or good. Even Glitter got good breaking off the toothpicks that were too deeply embedded in the dough to pull out.

Mostly I had a hard time figuring out when the girls could get to pull out a thorn. They weren't interested in giving up any chance for candy or dessert. They are usually helpful when asked. Several times when both girls wanted the same thing (like being first) I was able to ask one of them to give up the opportunity and then she got to take out a toothpick instead. However, on the whole I was at a lost for what the girls could do to earn those toothpicks.

We might try it again next year. For now I need to figure out what to do with the one we have now.

The Egg Tree and Easter Eggs

This Easter I was inspired by the book "The Egg Tree" that I got from the library several weeks ago. (It is due back at the library on Monday. I finally got around to reading it to the girls on Good Friday.) In the book, a young girl and her brother and cousins hunt for Easter Eggs and make an Egg tree.

In previous years we had an Egg Tree, but Wander wasn't so keen on saving the eggs from year to year. However, this book made me feel good about keeping the eggs rather like keeping Christmas ornaments.

Every year we have a small Easter egg hunt for the girls in the house on Easter morning. I borrowed the idea of leaving flower petals for the Easter bunny from the book, rather like how we leave cookies out for Santa.



Bright and early on Easter morning the girls raced downstairs and squealed with delight when they saw all the eggs left by the Easter bunny. They grabbed their baskets and raced to gather all the eggs.


Then the candy from the eggs went into the candy dish. Well, most of the candy.

I had the girls also pull out all the rest of the thorns on the crown of thorns.

Gamemaker

Last week I discovered GameMaker. Ever since I installed it on my computer, I've been having a blast playing with it. I normally don't play computer games, but GameMaker isn't a computer game. It's a program for making computer games.

I wanted to make a game where the player moves tiles around a board for my homeschool. One of GameMaker's strengths is that a novice with no programming experience can make a game without typing any code, simply by dragging and dropping actions on game elements. I started out using the drag-and-drop actions; however, I quickly abandoned the point and click interface in favor of using the built in scripting language.

I'm no computer programmer, but I enjoy writing computer scripts, and I'm a decent script writer. Back when I was a productive member of society I dabbled with writing macros and scripts whenever I could find an excuse. GameMaker has brought that back to me.

I started building arrays and using pointers. I created a for loop and a switch statement. I searched the web for examples that I could learn from and effortlessly read = and == and != and += and knew what they meant and how they were different. I refused to use global variables. I created my own function that received arguments and returned a value. I tried out my game in debug mode and when things didn't happen as expected, I learned about GameMakers unique quirks (like how an object could think that I clicked it even though I had really clicked an object on the other side of the screen). I thought how my brothers would probably laugh at me because all that stuff is child's play to them, but I still took pride in my simple creation.

I wish that GameMaker had better support for handling text (both input and output), but other than that the amount of functionality is awesome for a free program.

A complete novice to computer programming might be better off starting with something like Scratch, but I'm very happy with GameMaker.

Easter Eggs

We dyed Easter Eggs this evening.


First we tried the traditional approach with food coloring, vinegar, and water in a cup. The girls got bored waiting while their eggs sat in the dye. We also tried drawing on the eggs with a crayon before dying them, but the crayon flaked or melted away.


So we went back to last year's hit - the egg spinner. Luckily we still had some of the proper dye packets for the spinner left over from last year. Add a few drops of dye. Insert egg. Close lid. Each kid gets to push the button. Then, presto, a nicely colored egg. It keeps the girls engaged because they get to press a button and watch the egg spin.


We hung the blown eggs to make an egg tree, and added blown eggs from previous years. The hard boiled eggs we'll eat over the course of the long weekend.

half bike

Monday evening after supper we decided to see if Glitter would fit on the half-bike (what we call a trail-a-bike / trailercycle). Glitter is about the same age as Sparkle when we first put her on the half-bike, but a lot shorter! At first I set Glitter on the seat and held my arms ready to catch her while Wander walked the bike up and down the sidewalk. When she begged for more, Wander mounted up and took her for a spin around the block.


Glitter looks so tiny perched up there! Her hands were chilled to the bone, but she had a huge grin on her face.


Previously, Sparkle had considered the half-bike to be her own, and she was a bit jealous of Glitter riding on it. However, she put on a good face and thoroughly enjoyed her turn to enjoy the breeze without having to worry about steering or pedaling.


Now, if only we had the funds to get the Bike Friday Family Tandem!

Apple Chips

One of the healthier snacks that my girls like is apple chips. They're easy to make (only one ingredient!), store well (no refrigeration required), and super sweet.

Wash, peel, and core the apples. Then slice the apples into thin discs and place them on the dehydrator trays. Set the dehydrator to about 135 degrees and leave the house so you don't have to hear the fan whirring.

Several hours later, remove the dried apple chips and enjoy. I got two small canisters of apple chips out of a five pound bag of apples.

Chopsticks

Sparkle still occasionally reaches for those chopsticks.
Here she is eating breakfast cereal and milk with chopsticks, with the spoon and fork resting neatly on her napkin.

Sparkle's Poem

Those poetry teatimes and nature walks are starting to pay off.

We were at the gardens Monday. Since we looked at leaf shape last week, my plan was to look at leaf edges (smooth, toothed, etc.) this week. The girls had other plans. Glitter wanted to measure the grass, and Sparkle just wanted to enjoy the sunshine. We ended up by the fish as usual. Out of habit we started looking for the white fish. Then I heard Sparkle saying this rhyme.

Under the lilypad,
Throughout the pond,
Nice and pretty,
Nice and blond.

The rhyme was reminiscent of a poem from "When We Were Very Young" but it wasn't quite right. Then I asked Sparkle if she was quoting something or if she made it up herself. Turns out, she had made it up herself. The word "blond" clued me in that she was talking about the white fish, but just to be sure, I asked her what the poem was about. Yup, it was the fish.


Now, I admit that this poem isn't great literature, and "nice" and "pretty" are bland words. However, the use of the word "blond" is unique, it rhymes, and the first two lines have a nice flow. I think that it's a wonderful piecing of words for a five year old. Even more wonderful is how it came to her mind with no visible effort. The rhyme was the result of filling her mind with nature walks, repeated observation of the fish, and poetry, and then letting it all simmer until this piece bubbled out.

At teatime on Tuesday, Sparkle asked if she could recited her poem, and of course, I agreed.

Hollering

Two Fridays ago Sparkle got in trouble because she didn't come when I called to her that it was time to leave. As a consequence, we didn't go play at the park last Friday. It might be a co-incidence, but I've also been really, really, really grouch this past week.

Today I decided that Sparkle (and Glitter) need more practice in coming when called when they are out playing. We had lunch at their favorite place - McDonald's with a playroom. After barely touching their chicken nuggets, they wanted to go play. I told them that they could play, as long as they came right away when I called. If they didn't come, we would have to leave. Both girls nodded their agreement and ran off to play.

Every few minutes I called them back to me. Each time that they came, I hugged them and told them that because they came right away, they could play a bit longer. I went easy on Glitter and only called her after making eye contact with her; but with Sparkle, a few times I waited until her back was turned before calling her. Sparkle even got a bit paranoid and ran to me a few times when I didn't call her. Better safe than sorry.


We all had a good time and Glitter got good and tired for her afternoon nap. Here's to hoping that our next park day is better.