Reading and potty-training: Connection?

When Ella was 2, she was having none of this potty-training stuff. She wasn't rude about it, or even vehement, she was just my happy little comfort-loving kid. Her attitude was: "No, thanks. Doin' just fine. Diapers are easy and convenient, I'm stickin' with what I know." No response to my mild hints like "well, when you're a Big Girl you'll learn to use the potty." She was perfectly happy to be a little girl and have someone else take care of the diaper.

Then, one day, four days after she turned three, she decided to wear underpants. And never put the diapers on again (during the day). No fanfare or anything, just a decision she made quietly.

I'm thinking the reading has been like this for her.

Ella can read. Two weeks ago, she finished Set Five of the EPS Phonics Series, reading one 16-page book per day. So what I decided was that we would start way back at the beginning, Set Two, and let her read again through the whole series.

It turned out to be a good idea. She sat down and read four of the Set Two books the first day. She knows she gets a prize when she finishes all four sets of books. But she was motivated to read so many in a day because it's now easy for her. She can remember very clearly when she read the first series -- it took her 17 days to get through the 10 books. But now...four in a day...in 15 minutes! without any struggle or difficulty. She didn't even mind reading them to herself, rather than to me...she did that for the next two days, "getting her reading done" on her own, asking me if a particular word stymied her. (The word "use" kept getting in her way.)

But what Ella has never done was made the effort to use her reading skills in real life. It's as though she lets the words from signs, from TV, from name brands written on the side of objects, just wash right over her without her trying to identify them at all. That's just something that "big kids" do, that Madison does, and Ella has never seen the need to push it, to be one of those "Big Kids" before she's ready. She knows she'll get there eventually, she has proof that it will happen in a sister who is 20 months older.

And now I'm wondering if yesterday doesn't constitute an "underpants" moment. Because she was looking at the maze game on the back of David's "Cap'n Crunch" breakfast cereal (when it's someone's birthday in our house, they get a box of sugary kiddie cereal to eat as long as it lasts), and was trying to figure it out. "Oh!" she suddenly said, startled. "That's the word START!"

I think she's starting to see the utility in this reading business after all.

Snuggle bunny is sick

We've all been so healthy for so long that I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have a sick child. Ella woke up sick yesterday, medium-fever and headache-sniffle sinus cold, which magically morphed into the vomiting kind yesterday afternoon. Work went out the window for both of them, even Madison, though I had projects to complete. So we spent the afternoon camped out on the bathroom floor -- me with my laptop on the floor trying to get some work done, Ella with my head in my lap and her body huddled in the towels and blankets placed strategically near the toilet, and Madison reading Harry Potter in the bath nearby. Everyone says how -- in a way -- cute it is when kids get sick because they get so darned snuggly and I-want-no-one-else-but-Mommy, but Ella is like that all the time and so it wasn't really anything different in that realm.

It's interesting, I'm not really inclined to go near most other people when they're sick just out of interest of not catching it myself. But there is no way I'm in the least inclined to apply the same logic to my kids. Kick the kid out of my bed because she's sick and her sleeping with me radically increases the possibility of my getting sick too? No way! She stays! If I had to choose between her getting me sick and my avoiding her when she's sick, there's no contest whatsoever. It's a visceral thing, not even a logical one. I guess it's a beneficial evolutionary instinct.

It was a great day for her to be sick, though, because we had a snowstorm and everything was canceled -- for us it was piano and soccer -- and so I sent David to work in the Subaru and we just stayed put the whole day. In the bathroom.

We had a wild night last night, though, with her awake at various points in my bed, then in her bed, more medicine required, etc. But I anticipated that so I went to bed at 9:15. She's now awake, hoarse, snuggled in my lap as I type around her. Maybe we'll even get some work done today.

I hope Madison doesn't get it.

Snuggle School

Ella gets up early, but loves to snuggle in bed with me in the mornings. Sometimes she's silent while I doze, sometimes we whisper together. This morning, I thought she was singing under her breath, so I asked her to sing me a song. Turns out she was doing math problems, designing addition problems for herself and working them out. We spent a little while counting by tens, and also experimenting with larger numbers, counting FROM the larger number up rather than starting at #1. She had kind of known this before, but I could see it really clicked for her this morning: She now has a method for doing, say, 43 + 9, and it's EASY. She wanted to do math techniques in bed for over half an hour. Who am I to argue.

Our LIW commemoration yesterday

Every day at breakfast, we talk about someone whose birthday is that day. David and I try to choose a very positive person, but if that's not possible, then we choose someone they should know about from a cultural literacy perspective. Then, around the dinner table, the girls get a nickel for each fact they remember from the morning. One of our measurements to help them orient the person in time always is, "Was he born before or after Laura Ingalls Wilder (in 1867)?"

Well, yesterday WAS Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthday, the 140th anniversary of her birth. So it was an easy one to remember. Madison got 12 nickels and Ella got 8, both all-time records.

If it's appropriate, I try to have one or more activities during the day that hearken back to the Birthday of the Day so it helps them remember who it was. Today, of course, they didn't need any help! We read from Little House in the Big Woods, we bought turnips and made them as part of our dinner (universal Yucks, including from the grownups, but maybe I didn't cook them well) and then after dinner we made Mother Wilder's doughnuts out of the Laura Ingalls Wilder cookbook...to great acclaim. Madison hypothesized that maybe life wasn't so hard after all, back then. Even with the turnips and all.


P.S. Today is William Tecumseh Sherman's birthday. I wonder what I can do in his honor...burn the dinner?

Just a squirrel on a branch

One of home schooling's beautiful moments:

Madison was in her room early in the morning, reading. I was downstairs, working.

She came into the room. "Come quick, mom, you have to see this, but be quiet and move slowly when you get to my room."

We lay on her bed with our heads at just the right angle, and we could see a squirrel outside in the freezing (FREEZING! 4 degrees!) cold, on a branch, eating a nut. His tail was curled back over the top of his back.

"I saw him digging for the nut. When he found it, he just ran up to that branch and he's been eating it ever since. I bet that nut tastes extra good, on such a cold, cold day, don't you think? At first, I thought he looked like a porcupine, because his tail was on his back like that, but then I realized he's a squirrel. Isn't he cute? Do you think he's cold? Why do you think he didn't bring it back to his nest...do you think he just wanted to eat it before any other squirrels noticed it?"

Then she stopped talking, and we watched the squirrel. Just watched, silently.

Then we went downstairs and ate breakfast. The pancakes tasted extra good, on such a cold, cold day.

A lot of work recently - mine, that is

It's been a real struggle to fit all my work in amongst all of the kids' stuff. I am working on some cool projects, which has slung me into thorough mental conflict all morning long; as the girls do their work, I can't get enough time to myself to get up any real momentum for my own stuff. I get it done, but it takes a lot longer than it would if I just had some solid minutes.

Let me also be perfectly honest about this: My work is more interesting to me than Madison's conversion of fractions into decimals, Ella's careful rendering of a cursive E, or the fact that today would be Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthday.

I love my work. But it involves a lot of keeping up with details for a lot of people, in addition to requiring a lot of thinking work on my own. And everyone needs "little fixes" on their reports. When these come in over the wire (so to speak), if I don't do them right away, then they get lost. So I try to do them right away.

So, often, too often it seems, I am putting my kids "on hold." Oh, you're done with that math? Ok, I'll look at it as soon as I'm done with this (and this and this if I can squeeze them in), why don't you start your handwriting?

And, often, too often it seems, I'm putting my clients "on hold." They understand, but no one is particularly thrilled about the "No, sorry, in the mornings after 9:15 until lunch I'm pretty taken up with the kids' work. Oh...and the afternoons? They're worse because I'm driving them all over creation to Spanish, chess, sign language, karate, dance, Brownie events, nature class, etc. How about between 12:30 and 1pm on Thursday? Or between 8:30 and 10:30pm on Wednesday? Or from 7:30-8:30am on Friday? Or I can get you on my cell when they're at karate, but I can't be in front of a computer then. Otherwise you'll just have to email me."

Yesterday, we were at their Spanish class, which they have at a friends' house in Pittsford. We went early because the other kids all had the day off of school due to excessive cold (!), and they hoped my kids could come over early and play. We were there more than 2 1/2 hours, and all that was going on in my mind when I was having a grown-up chat with Monica was how if I were in front of the computer, I'd be able to spend the time working on this and this and this, and oh geez I almost forgot THIS. And the schoolroom needs organizing, it's become a dumping ground because it's too cold to work in. And why is it that people keep wearing clothes...and then PUTTING THEM IN THE HAMPER which means they need washing. Why not wear the stuff two or three days?

At least I've been fairly successful about keeping the evenings for a nice dinner and some time with David.

But a good book, I'd kill for the time to read a good book. One that doesn't involve Harry or Hermione, not that I begrudge Ms. Rowling...there is a David Hackett Fisher history book that is calling me. Madison and I haven't worked on her chapter book in weeks. Or paint, I'd desperately love to paint. I have a wonderful photograph of Letchworth Park that I'd like to replicate in paint for the area above the fireplace in Tatiana's new house.

But the next thing that is coming up that will be when I get a stretch of time is TAXES. Have to get all my records together from last year. First I have to set up files from the move, haven't done that yet.

You know what really gets me? I know everyone will want to reassure me about this, because it sounds ridiculous from the outside, but really and truly I'm LAZY. Yes, I somehow manage to get all of this done which looks all good on paper and all. But I spend far too much time on the internet, reading other homeschooling or friends' or political blogs, time that could be spend filing or doing laundry or planning meals or even reading or painting. I can't even justify my internet time as particularly edifying, it's more a way of escaping from all of the details chasing me. I feel so guilty, thinking about how much I'd REALLY get done if I actually made the most efficient use of my time. I would rather be painting than lazily clicking through from one blog to the next, why don't I do it?

On the other hand, when I step back, I'm perfectly happy with what I've been able to accomplish in the last year. So go figure.

While you do that, I'm going back to decimals, and the way OW has two different sounds in English.

Early morning ZZZZZZ

I went to wake Madison up this morning, as it was 8:45 and she still wasn't up, and I didn't want to start a cycle where she'd be up late at night.

I snuggled in next to her.

"I love these Mommy-and-Madison moments," I began.

"Well, let's have a WHOLE LOT of them, right now," she mumbled, burrowing further under the covers.

Story writing

It is so interesting how removing just one single impediment to the production process can really open the floodgates.

Madison had a project for Brownies, to get her "Her-story" badge: She had to write and illustrate a fractured fairy tale, set in modern times. This was assigned three weeks ago, to be completed for last night's meeting.

The resistance was amazing, and this from my little story writer. For "writer," though, you should probably substitute "composer," because the mechanics of writing and spelling absolutely still get in the way of her being able to say what she wants to say. It all ends up being an extremely frustrating experience.

So I had her do the first page one day for cursive handwriting practice -- this was considerably before my revelation the other day about how she was holding the pencil incorrectly -- but it really was only a small fraction of what she wanted to say.

So at the beginning of the week, with the deadline looming, I asked her if she actually wanted to do this. Remember, a badge is involved. She said yes, then no, then changed her mind to yes. That competitive, measurement-oriented child really loves the badges. So I set her up with her computer.

So here's the thing: After working at it (not without enjoyment) for an hour, she came down and showed me what she'd done. And then she told me the rest of the story. I realized that we were either in for 10 hours of painstaking typing and spell-checking, or I could type it for her.

So she narrated "The Real Story of Cinderella." I typed. It's on 15 pages, with about 3-4 sentences per page, and it's FUNNY. Cinderella had an attitude, she never applied herself to anything except her nails and her TV shows. Her mother was worried that if she went to the ball, she'd end up married to the king's son, who was an equal space cadet, and then the kingdom would be in trouble. She thought the ball would be boring, but after everyone left of course THEN it became appealing, so she peremptorily summoned her fairy godmother out of retirement and got a carriage. The prince wasn't handsome enough for her, so she ran away from him, but fortunately found her perfect match, a man who was both rich AND handsome.

Then she illustrated each page, and was very proud of the result.

She read it out loud at the Brownie meeting last night, apparently to great acclaim. She told me in the car that she intends to write some sequels, and when we got home, she tried to sequester herself in the attic room where her computer is so she could do just that. But it was bedtime.

Guess what she'll be doing for school, today.

Graphing the lemonade stand

From Deb:

Inspired by Raymond's real-life marble business, Madison has been talking a lot about the lemonade stand she will have someday. She'd do it right now, but January in Rochester is not the most auspicious time to have a lemonade stand. She plans to do it at RIT, get sponsored by the math club there, and share half the profits with them. What self-respecting college student, she figures, wouldn't buy a quarter's worth of lemonade from a cute little blonde-haired girl?

Madison talks about the lemonade stand all the time, so I decided to make it our math project for a couple of days. I pretended she already had the stand, and had done it for two weeks. I said that I had given her $10 in quarters to start out, and then gave her the sum total of the cash drawer for each day of the two weeks of the business. From this, she first figured out her sales for each day (subtraction with decimals), then the number of glasses she'd sold each day (division), then the number of glasses she'd sold total (long addition). Then, given that it costed $.05/glass to make the lemonade, the profit (.20 x # glasses sold...and we also did it a different way, with multiplication of fractions: 4/5 of the sales was profit).

And then...she graphed total sales, sales per day, and glasses per day. She loves the graphing. And, I was stunned at this. She graphed sales per day, first, and noticed the zigzags, because some days she had more sales than others. And then, she graphed glasses sold per day, and noticed that the graph was the exact same pattern. Then, she graphed total sales, and at first expected that this graph, too, would be the same pattern. But then it was not. And then, she looked carefully at WHAT it was she was graphing, and explained perfectly why the first two graphs were the same graph, while the total sales couldn't be (specifically, it couldn't go down, she said, it always must go up, unless you spend the money in the middle of the time). Yes!

We're now graphing daily snow levels thanks to the great snow ruler our friends Tom and Susan gave us.

Sorry, Laura, but Madison likes this so much better than Saxon Math.