Katy’s rambles about life

was actually rather good!

Any day that starts with cuddles in bed is usually destined to be okay really She stormed through a huge amount of Singapore EB 2a which included a load of measuring work (so I have a spotlessly clean kitchen now after repeated mopping up of the water ) then some counting and tallying work. Then she lurched to some Lang Arts work and did 3 lovely tracings over her week’s words (Sonlight K LA wek 3… we are a little “behind” on LA!)

She’s really into the Silver Chair now and still lapping up Grandma’s Attic - it’s twee, it’s overly moralistic in places (but then she’s grown up with Clifford so she’s used to that!) but you know? I could almost yearn for that sort of life some days!

She wanted some TV time so I sneaked off to play on the PC only to find she followed me and wanted to play on Study Dog. So she did Oral Comprehension 1 faultlessly and the one with “Anna 1 and Anna 2″ again, no faults. She could probbably do level 3 on them as well…. just a shame about some of the other bits!

We attempted baking and the process was good even if the results were crap. I’m going to buy an oven thermometer adn see if it’s the oven that’s wrong or the bloody recipes before I go and wring necks at the service company.

The meal out was okay, Becca loved hers and virtually licked the plate, Tim tucked in and did his serious damage, I ended up with a BLT, I almost wish I’d told them to go without me but then Tim would have felt guilty about going out without me etc and he needed a good guilt free scoff!!!

She watched Clifford yesterday and it was all about drawing and how you don’t have to be dead good to do it. So today we went to Partners to stock up on glue etc (we do this regularly!) and she spotted a little notebook with plain pages and asked for it. It is now her sketchbook! She drew a scarecrow with fantastic attention to detail then “signed” it and wrote the day as I said artists always date their work. ( So that was handwriting taken care of then!!!!) She also drew me and Tim and insisted taht I drew her!

This mornign though we had a real breakthrough - she has finished Study Dog. She’s been so close for ages but those ****** 2 sound consonants are a total mystery to her. So I actually dropped the “what does it sound like” and did “if it’s a c and it’s followed by an e the chances are it sounds more like a capital than a little one” There were only a few of those to deal with (it was the “oral comprehension” at the end of the whole thing) and after she got past those she romped the rhyming words (because if they end the same they probably rhyme…) and the find the word ones (because if you put your arrow over them they are read to you so you just need to remember what you are looking for!) and we got to see Dr Zeeeee being made visible again. Cue ice cream with chocolat buttons on top for a celebration!

There has been a section on Study Dog that has been the cause of more attackes of the vapours than the whole rest of the thing put together… the bit about multi-sound consonants. So today, rather than trying to help her “hear” the different sounds (which is just not happening) I explained the “rules” like if c comes before i or e it’s likely to be a soft sound more like the name of the letter than it’s sound. She (sort of) got it. With lots of hand holding, reminding of the rules she did all 3 parts of it. To be fair some of it was a walk over for her and needed no help from me at all but getting past the soft and hard c and g sounds was such a relief!!!!

Later on she brought 1 of her word cards to me and read it then asked to play Go Fish with the cards so we did and she did okay with the reading. then she did several pages of the Starfall “reading journal” and did some lovely writing both tracing and independently.

Other highlights include her sitting transfixed by “Eurika” on CBBC and her doing really well with the shop game on the cebeebies website.

Sitting down with the colouring sheets seemed to hlep her a bit to get her grumps under control. So we moved swiftly on from them to 2 hours of Hama therapy. She half filled a big circle board and I did a Catherine wheel wich I will fuse tomorrow probably. I may even take a pic of it.

After that she did the final part of SL K’s lang. arts week 2. So she’s now written out most of her address and has been introduced to the concept of abbreviations, house numbers, street names and towns in addresses. Sounds lame but actually being told that and having written it out she now can say her address properly and understands what she is saying. give us another 2 or 3 years and we will be finished with LA K!!!

She’s also read one of the RAZ level aa (dead easy) books to me today and got all excited about it. And she read the odd word or two in one of her Topsy and Tim books (hateful, boring, twee little books that she adores…)

By far the highlight of her day though was what arrived in the post…. “More Stories from Grandma’s Attic” sent by Merry but more exciting than just being a book for her in the post was…. Merry had written in it!!! Oh the excitement, a book written in specially for her!!! And from Merry who’s house she went to and HAD STORIES!!! Some days I wish I was excited about little things like she can be….

She launched straight into the next Stile book this morning - “early reader book 1″ - advised me that it was “too hard mummy” and promptly waltzed through all the initial sound pages flawlessly.

Then she demanded “the book with the clown on it” (that would be Singapore EB 2a then) and did 10 pages from that. yes, 10. So I can now quite happily say she “gets” bigger/smaller/taller/shorter and as an aside can tell the story of the 3 bears….

Stories went quite well, she really loves In Grandma’s Attic so that’s on to find sequels or similars for. She’s also really enjoying the “history” book which is currently giving us a whirlwind tour of clothing through the ages.

This afternoon was crafts and she abandoned me in favour of one of the ladies within minutes and happily made cards with her all afternoon. This woman deserves a medal, she’s just so patient with her!!!

The hour seems to have changed fairly successfully here thankfully and she’s gone to bed pretty much at her normal time. Mind you, I never managed to part her from her PJs today so it was a fairly quick process getting her to bed!

please can I do it more often!!!

This morning she cleaned her table off as soon as she had finished breakfast and we sat and Hama-ed for quite some time. In fact she finished a whole flower in 1 sitting which she has never done before.

Then she danced her way through Boogie Beebies (irritating programme but it gets her moving!!) before switching off and doing 3 full pages of Miquon (number lines… as seen on Schools TV the other week so now fully understood…. ) and getting a third of the way through teh 100 square which is the next page on. She wrote most of the answers herself too which is something she’s refused in the past. Then she did 3 dot-to-dots (that’s sequencing numbers to 20 then…) “helped” by one of her dolls!

After that it was stories and discussing ideas raised by stories and a spontaneous demand to look in the Encycleopedia at something. And then some more stories…..

Heading towards bedtime she grabbed all her reading books, dumped them on my lap and started working through them. All 10 of them. These are ones she is sort of familiar with and are pretty easy going but she was genuinely reading (as in pointing to the words and not muddling up minor details like “a” instead of “the” which she normally does if she’s reciting) and got all excited about the idea of reading.

Bit more Cebeebies then up to bed for bedtime stories…. she insisted on a First hundred words type book and promptly did a pretty good job on half of that too before having anything read to her.

So, thank you Jan and your wonderful daughters! You inspired her to great things, pass the coffee will you… I’m worn out!!!

She decided (when I said it was bedtime…) to do some of the Starfall worksheets linked to “Peg the Hen” which is the second book in their series. So first she read the book, yes, she’s using picture clues and familiarity with the story but she read it well enough to make her smile so that will do for me. Then she did the last 2 worksheets in the set including reading words out of the context of the book. She managed with very little help and was on a roll!

So we got the MFW workbook out adn did “D” - yes the whole week’s worth of D! This was a colouring/cutting out page, a find the words beginning with D page, a write over the letters page (horrid printing, not nice cursive but never mind) and then a cut and paste page…. there were 6 words - dad, ant, sun, Sam, Ann and nut. She cut them out, stuck all bar nut onto the right pictures (Sam and Ann were in a previous week so she recognised them) and worked out that the last one must be nut. Without help. Not the teeniest, tiniest bit. The next sheet was the “blend ladder” which I tried with her once ages ago and left, we normally ingnore that page. Today she made a very, very good attempt, it was her choice to try and very much led by her.

then she declared it bedtime and had far too many stories!!!! (but unlike some on the blogring I actually enjoy reading out loud so I secretly enjoy it when she demands a story marathon…)

I feel I am looking “through a glass dimly” at some day a long way in our future when she sits and reads with confidence and enjoyment and I can sit back, smile and know we got there. Not by *my* efforts, not becuase I found *the* way to get her off and reading but because, with the occaisional night like tonight when her determination overtakes her feeling of not being able, she makes those teeny tiny steps and remembers a few words she has seen before and “hears” a word sounded out and chips a bit of her “I can’t” wall down. She did it with talking, nothing for nearly 3 years then we couldn’t shut her up (wonder where she gets that from ). She did it with potty training, totally resistant to sitting on the potty or toilet one day, totally dry the next. She’s a *********** perfectionist and waits until she knows she really can befor she does. She’s my little miracle adn I’m so very proud of her.

Not many months ago she was quite adamant that she hated Dr Seuss. Now she can’t get enough!!! We “tandem read” Hop and Pop today, the whole thing in one go!

Scuse me whilst I have a puffed up chest, proud mummy moment….

her

Long lie in…. 10am!!!!! Knew she was tired but really didn’t think *that* tired!
second half of 100 Dresses
Prince Caspian
Living Long ago (henceforth LLA) clothing - Roman
Dr Seuss Alphabet book
3 pages EB 2a (greater than, less than)
DEL 1 page (sequences)
Lots of stamping cards at Ladies Crafts
Lots of chatting too!
Traced over words in 5 cards

Me

Bit more crochet
bit of housework
attempted to make “dream topping” recipe from hillbilly housewife but i don’t have a proper electric whisk so it’s not very good (tastes ace though!)
set several hotmail accounts that are bombarding me to delete from POP server.
Wondering about getting a new e-mail account to dodge the spam!
Plan to sit with OU books for a bit tonight (honest Kirsty!)

We did a lot of nothing really! She spent a good while jumping off carious bits of furniture onto floor cushions, turned her ankle and recovered only after milk, snickerdoodles (scrummy biccies) and Cebeeebies were administered to her “sick bed” aka the sofa. Then she jumped off more furniture, I think I may have mentioned her not very steep learning curve before…..

She also did some collage with a bag of bits from a friend, made a “head dress” from some cardboard covered with turkey foil (much stronger than normal tinfoil!) and liberally decorated wtih feathers, sequins and anything else she could find.

Some Christmas cards were written and decorated very modestly, sorry but this year it seems we are going for minimalist - 1 stamp, no colour so far! She is determined to do the lot herself though hence started already.

Some Singapore EB was done, she likes that. Some reading was attempted, she’s getting there, just like good old British Rail used to be….

The Horse and His Boy was finished and the next book (Prince Caspian) had to be placed in the “daytime story box” ready for tomorow. This one seemed to fizzle out a little in the last chapter which turned into a sort of “everyone lived happily ever after and Shasta, sorry Cor was a really good sort.”

Highlight of my day was managing to roll our one of the flour tortillas round rather tahn my normal array of odd shapes… sadly I have no idea what I did to make it round! Sigh