Now, to the current topic, I love back to school time! I loved it as a child and I think I love it more as a parent. Nothing beats getting to pick out new notebooks and pencils.
I am most excited about Emaleigh starting Kindergarten. I absolutely love this time in the girls education! Nothing beats teaching a child to read. Being able to see the whole process work is awesome. I feel like in teaching the girls to read, I am opening up a whole new world for them and giving them countless opportunities! I love it!!
Tori is dyslexic so the reading process took on a whole new meaning for her. It was so incredible to watch her take the mind and way of thinking that God has given her and slowly adjust the process to fit her.
Each of my girls learned to read so differently even though we have always used the same method. Brianna could not slide the sounds together to save her life! I tried visual games to help her, oral games, everything!! Then one day, poof, it clicked and on we went! Tori just could not process the images at first. I spent countless hours on the computer researching and reading about dyslexia, I read numerous books and studies! Most of what we read told us that if given the space, a dyslexic child will find their own way and own set of clues to help. So we gave her space! We read to her to instill a love of books and we s..l..o..w..l..y went through learning to read. Then in about late 3rd grade it kicked in and off she went!! She will still turn around an occasional letter, number or word, but she has learned to look over what she writes and most of the time can notice now that something is amiss and fix it! She is now reading great! She just finished The Hobbit and really enjoyed it as well as the Nancy Drew collection.
Quick funny story...dyslexics have a really hard time with left and right. Tori is able to distinguish left and right because she has a freckle on her right hand. I will see her in gymnastics when they learn a new beam skill looking at her hand! Well, the other day she had an hour lesson with just her and one of her coaches and they were working on a skill on the bar. Well, as I watched, I realized that she was having a lot more trouble than normal. Eventually it occurred to me that she was using the wrong leg! When she took a water break I mentioned this and she was like, oh, your right!! She was happy to know what the problem was. I asked her after her workout why she had used the other leg and she said that she just remembered that it was they leg that was closest to where the bathrooms were. This coach worked her facing the other side of the bar so it was a different leg! We all thought it was pretty funny!
Anyway, I love teaching the girls to read and I love the way you get to really "know" how they read and how different it works!
I am also really excited about Brianna's logic course this year. This is mostly because of two books she is using, Socrates Meets Jesus: History's Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ by Peter Kreeft and the Handbook of Christian Apologetics: Hundereds of Answers to Crucial Questions by Peter Kreefy and Ronald K. Tacelli. I have looked through these and they seem to be awesome books!!
I have spent this last week working on lesson plans, schedules and assignment sheets! It has been soo fun!
Are you guys ready for school to start??
6 comments:
I love the beginning of school too! It is so exciting! The other day when Chris and I were in Walmart and saw all of the school supplies, we both commented on how much we used to love buying new school supplies! I love the pictures! They are so cute!
yes! nate gets to go to preschool this year!! he and ava will have a blast!
We've already started, but I just love it. To watch the kids really start digging in and know that they are on the right track.
On the reading Bobby didn't read really until 3rd grade either. But once he started, there is no stopping him. Chris well we are not there yet.
Have a blessed day!
Cute pics of the girls! Where'd you take those?
My sister is 6 years older than me, and we had our own rooms. She was always too excited to sleep the night before the first day of school. She would wait until my parents went to sleep, come wake me up and make me come sleep in her room. We would talk until we fell asleep. (I was always a little tired on the first day!)
The first time we did that I remember my mom freaking out trying to find me. After that, she knew it was our little "first day of school" ritual.
When she went to college, we had to adapt our ritual to the night before she left for school. Our last slumber party was the night before she got married.
I recently had a conversation with a public school teacher about homeschooling. She is very against it and i was saying it totally depends on the parent. I can see it both ways but I always use you as the example of the parent that does it right. Your girls are the testimony of your abilities as a teacher. Oh my goodness I have never heard of Logic courses and those titles sound amazing!! Hope all the girls have a very blessed year!
Lynn,
Thank you very much, that really means a lot to me!!
Post a Comment