ThadenPierce School

Christopher was walking outside to wait for Kit coming home from work and found this! We’re not sure yet what kind it is but when we scared it there was a reddish-orange little flap that came down from its chin. An hour later it was still hanging out by the front door.

When Emy walks to the front door now she yells, “Lizard? LIZARD??”

We’ve been searching to find a chapter book (ideally a series) that would really capture Christopher’s interest but one that he could read on his own.  It’s been a challenge!  He’ll read one book from a series and then lose interest when we try another one and I wasn’t sure why.  Today we’re all hanging out in my bed and C’s looking through our shelves and asking questions about Harry Potter.  I suggest he pull down the first one and I can read it to him.  I did, just a couple paragraphs.  Then I set it down and he snatched it up and started reading it to me!  He tore through the first three pages and only needed help with a handful of words and asked if he could start reading this series instead of the other one.  Kit and I were laying on the bed just laughing because we can’t believe he’s reading this well and we love to see him so excited about it.  

We have two in our garden and when Christopher said, “Mom, look!” and I turned around I did NOT expect to see a toad in my BEDROOM!!

So I sent him outside and grabbed the camera and here’s our toad friend that we then quickly released far away from the fascinated Bennett & Emiline:

Elmo Keyboard

Starfall ABCs

Just over a year ago I signed up for this yahoo group that’s really not a group – it’s a mailing list and once a day you can an email that provides an educational link with some details, age range, etc. Different days, different themes (today is Saturday so music.) It’s called Click Schooling and I’ve not gone through the links yet but just sent the into a specified mailbox for later reference.

I just realized that postpartum is going to be the PERFECT TIME to explore some of these links! They’re all educational, most are interactive, and it’s something I can do with the kids on the laptop while nursing. I’m really excited! We have over 360 emails (she sometimes takes breaks) so plenty of links to keep us busy. Go check it out! If there are links we especially adore I’ll post them here.

School has been woefully neglected, C has been asking why we’re not doing lessons. I explained we are, just not his book ones. Still reading a ton and fitting in lots of life lessons like fractions with cooking, researching animals and various science interests, time and calendar skills, memorizing the Articles of Faith, etc. Just not the formal lessons.

However, we’re trying to get back into the swing of things these last few weeks pre-baby. Mo and C have both been asking for lessons so they’re doing some writing assignments now. I know we could take off the rest of the year from any formal lessons and they would both still be just fine (and probably ahead on their “grade level”) but I think we all like having some sense of structure, however loose and fluid it may be.

We’re having a bit of an issue with C, he’s extremely unsure of his reading abilities. He still asks us to read to him (and we do daily, and we’re happy to) but he’s asking us to read him books that he thinks he cannot read – things clearly he’s capable of but hasn’t attempted because in his head, he can’t read yet. It’s funny, but mildly frustrating because we’re constantly reminding him, “Christopher, YOU KNOW HOW TO READ. Why don’t you read this one?” Things like directions or movie titles or books the little kids ask him to read. And we hear that now all the time from Bennett, “Cri-cri-cri, Mo-ha, READ TO ME!!” He loves having them read to him.

I’m sure that Christopher just hasn’t realized yet that he truly can read, most anything. The other day he was taking a turn during scripture reading and he handled ‘Jerusalem’ without even pausing.

The other “struggle” is that he doesn’t think he can spell so he doesn’t try, he asks us to tell him how to spell everything and we have to keep sending him back to at least ATTEMPT to spell the word before asking us for help. We ask him what he thinks the answer is and he tell us, is generally right, then goes and writes whatever. But I think he’s so scared of making a mistake that he doesn’t want to even try – during lessons I tell him he cannot ask me for help until he’s tried writing the entire thing. Then we go back and make corrections.

I see similar traits in Moira – they want to get it right the first time, they hate to go back and cross things out and have to fix them. They are really hard on themselves because they want to make it perfect. Gee, wonder where they get that from?

So we’re working on letting them know mistakes teach us, we can learn how to fix and correct and none of us are perfect and it’s okay to mess up. We just need to keep trying. Which I realize is a far, far more important lesson for them to learn than any school lesson.