Ella Simone Ross
Born: April 29, 2001
Where: Highland Hospital, Rochester, NY
Named after: Ella Fitzgerald, and “Simone” from Kay Nolte Smith’s book A Tale of the Wind
Nicknames: Baby Bunny, Ella Bunny, La
First School: Trinity Montessori
Second School: Pantops Mountain Montessori
Current School: Home school
Favorite color: Pink
Favorite toy: Snuggles, her stuffed bunny
Favorite food: Pizza or Chinese food
Best friend: Dario
Favorite subject: Logic
Second favorite subject: Reading
Favorite books: Fairy chapter book series
Loves: Dancing, singing, karate
Makes up stories when she’s asleep
Makes up songs when she’s awake
Favorite thing to do: Snuggle with her mom, dance
Favorite birthday gift: iPod
4 comments:
Happy Birthday to Ella!
Happy Birthday!
A couple of things your post made me think of:
1) Simone from "A Tale of the Wind"... I read that about 15 years ago, and I have zero recollection of it. It's just gone. But for some reason, the thought of it is tied in with Hugo's "Hunchback"... I should add it to my reading list.
2) Ella's favorite subject is logic? First, that's awesome. Second, how do you teach logic to a 7 year old? I'm just curious how you present a topic like that to a young one. Is there some curriculum you use? Or a particular book that is good for introducing it to kids?
On a tenuously related topic (that of introducing advanced things to young ones), our copy of the first Harry Potter book arrived yesterday. I'm trying to get A. (4 1/2) interested in reading a book with not pictures without pushing toooo hard. I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll be reading it to her tonight. (crossing fingers)
C. August:
1) About A Tale of the Wind: Yes, you're right to associate it with Hugo; while Hugo doesn't *exactly* appear in the book, he is referred to several times. A central character in A Tale of the Wind is Nandou, a dwarf, who is also a great actor, who identifies with Hugo's hunchback -- he yearns to play the male romantic leads, in fact he would be brilliant at them, but for his physical stature.
2) Logic: We like the workbooks from The Critical Thinking Co.
http://www.criticalthinking.com/index.jsp
3) Harry Potter: My girls would have been too young for it at 4 1/2. I would try it out if you love it, but don't push it for now if she doesn't. There's plenty of time. Harry would have absolutely been a shell-shock of a first start for us. What really worked for Ella, who took a long time to get interested in chapter books being read to her (she needed the pictures to visualize what was happening) was definitely books-on-tape in the car. That happened at age 5 1/2. Before that, there really was no reading chapter books to her, she just wasn't interested. But the books on tape in the car got her in the rhythm, and eventually she moved to wanting chapter books to be read to her.
That's right! Nandou! I can suddenly see frayed plot threads in my head now. Thanks.
Re: logic books, I'll definitely check those out. First things first, letters/reading/phonics. I'm going to try out something that an HBLer recommended, www.clicknkids.com. I checked it out and compared it to other computer-based tools, and it really seems good.
Now to Harry Potter. I just finished reading the first 5 pages to her before bed, and I think she may not be ready. I'll give it another couple of chances if she shows interest, but I agree that it doesn't make sense to push it. I bought it along with a bunch of more age-appropriate picture books -- some relatively long, in an attempt to get her used to the needed increase in attention span -- on the off-chance that she'd be ready, and she immediately said she wanted to read Harry Potter when I showed it to her. I think she's heard about it a lot from listening in on random discussions, and her cousin whom she idolizes loves the books. So she's picked up that "Harry Potter is cool!"
FYI, I have never read any of the books. Once I finally decided that I might like reading them (mostly at RationalJenn's insistence) I decided that I'd rather wait until A. was old enough and we could read them together.
A. is very headstrong, and also revolts if we push things she isn't ready for. We learned long ago to plant seeds in her head and then wait. Then suddenly, months later, she surprises us by being way far ahead of where we anticipated. Or not, if she's not interested, which is fine too!
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