Another Year has come and gone…
So…here it is: my second post on this new blog! I have so much to tell you.
Blog Land: I haven’t really worked on the functionality nor the look/feel of this new blog yet, but I have worked on some content…it counts in my book as progress. I will not allow you to criticize me, because I am busy with more important things, such as being a mother and domestic goddess.
Family Land: We had William’s brother (Bobby, Elijah’s godfather) and his fiance (Melinda) and four year old daughter (Kendall) come up here to Pittsburgh to stay with us for a week — all the way from Tulsa, OK. We all had fun. It is my sincerest hope that they will move up here (hopefully to co-house). The children got along…as well as any two four year olds can who are only children and both dominate personalities — with that Disney (Kendall) vs. Anti-Disney (Elijah) driving cultural force behind it as well and you can only imagine. No one drew blood, thankfully.
Personal Land: I will be 26 years old tomorrow! Can you believe that? I can. Please, don’t send me anything outside of a ‘hello’. I do not feel any older, but those around me who are older than I, do feel as though they are ‘ancient’…I don’t see it.
House Land: We have now cleaned and unpacked 90% of our house!!! Leaving my office, William’s studio and the balcony and porch to be cleaned and unpacked. Ok, so maybe that’s more than 10% left, but of the Public spaces in our house, 90% is done. I finally have some free time for more creative endeavors without feeling guilty about doing craftiness.
Unschooling Land: Well, the kiddo is still living, playing, loving and subsequently, still learning. We have recently been to the Carnegie Science Centre to play around and to see the Bodies exhibit; we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We also hopped over to the Pittsburgh’s Children Museum (PCM) and made a day of it; we also made paper there. We are patiently awaiting the new exhibit at the PCM — Secret Circles. We have been busy building with Kapla blocks, blocks, wooden marble run, Lincoln Logs and anything else that one can stack. There has also been an explosion (both quantity and quality) in writing, drawing and coloring. Elijah has been very detailed and creative with his drawings since the Holidays; also enjoys naming his creations. I am constantly amazed on a daily basis by how much he knows and remembers. He has a fascinating grasp on numbers, patterns and math in general, without any ‘real’ prompting. As usual, he still LOVES being read to and looking through books and catalogs by himself. So, we will just keep on dreaming and painting the town red with him…he’s the one in control and is showing us that he’s learning immense amounts of useful skills and knowledge all while having a glorious childhood.
That’s a wrap for this post. I have more, but I am tired of blabbing. I’ll be back.
In Love and Peace,
M.
Cool stuff. I may get around to blogging about this sometime, but your little one is right at the age where reading mattered to my two, who are now 14 and 18. Our big learn-how-to-read expense was a $1.39 bag of magnetic letters. Every day, whenever especially my son walked by the fridge, he moved a couple of letters around and asked “what’s this say?”. “Why, that says ZMU!” Scramble scramble. “OK, what’s this say?” “RIZ” “OK, what’s this say?” “FZUB” And so forth. Forty times in a row. Day in, day out. My daughter took a more systematic approach, two at a time and then every other letter in turn to make a third. Day in, day out. All at their pace, at whatever time mattered to them, and screw doing the dishes or whatever we were into at that moment. Just sat on the floor and moved letters around on the fridge. And when they ran away to get into something else, fine. But they were both fully literate before starting school. Mightahad something to do with the 300 kids’ books sitting in bins on the floor all over the house, too, and lotsandlotsandlots of trips to the library.
HTH,
Stu
Comment by Stu — February 1, 2008 @ 7:10 pm
yeah…we have at least 300 kids books and read him just about everything! He’s big on making letters out of whatever is around and then combining them and seeing us in pain while we try to pronounce his creations! It dawned on me the other day while we were reading one of his books, he knows a ton of words from memory/sight. I had no idea just how many he knows and I’ve never had him remember them…in fact he can spell at least two dozen words from memory. It amazes me. I think if we had magnetic letters on the fridge, we would never do ANYTHING else but pronounce fantastic letter combos! I do have to get into the fridge to feed us, you know!
Comment by admin — February 2, 2008 @ 11:49 am