I was tucking in my two lovelies to sleep. Elena, sitting up in bed, looks at mama and from out of nowhere says, "Mama, you're HUGE! You weigh a LOT!"
Aghast, I told Elena that you just don't say that to people. It can be a sensitive issue with some people. It's not polite.
"But, Papa, when I tell myself how big I'm getting, I tell myself, 'Elena, you are HUGE!'"
19 October 2009
17 October 2009
Educational potpouri
Again, not to be particularly interesting to anyone, but to help us keep track of what we're doing.
Though we don't have any of the elementary child materials other than the posters that Erich made, we have a full set of the teacher materials (descriptions of lessons and how they might be sequenced, etc). We do not have this for the primary materials. Now that I've been home more, I've been wanting to learn things to do with the primary materials. Since I cleaned up her school area, Elena has been requesting to use the materials a lot and I'm not a huge fan of just making things up (because when I read the real lesson... it's always better). So we've been trying to put together lesson materials (for the teacher) for the materials we have, as well as getting a way to track what lessons Elena's given and when she follows up on them other than just sporadic mentions on this blog. Before diving into the elementary material during his certification, Erich did go through a condensed primary training, so he had some materials tucked away that we found. He hadn't been required to make full books for each subject like he was for the elementary stuff, so they're not complete by any means. The other great resource that we've found is infomontessori.com, which has descriptions of the lessons and sequences for much of the curriculum.
We were feeling a bit overwhelmed with how to keep track of everything (as well as how to organize our own notebook of lessons for the teacher), but finally settled on doing it based on the materials that we actually have. I took an inventory of our materials and made a spreadsheet divided (by sheets) into the four major topic areas for primary (Practical Life, Language, Math, Sensorial). Then on each sheet I have the materials we have (including the non-montessori ones) and am hoping to get on there the appropriate lessons so we can note the dates they're presented and followed-up on.
What this highlighted were two big things: First, we really don't have many materials. For example, the only language materials we have are the print, lowercase, sandpaper letters and the laminated words cards that we made with pictures for matching games. (Fortunately, I think her language skills are progressing just fine, given the abundance and utility of non-official materials for language like, you know, books, paper, and writing utensils.) Erich pointed out that a typical Montessori primary classroom is about the size of our whole living room area. Currently, we have all Elena's school things in one small corner. Now, I think we can get away with a smaller space because we don't have to have out materials for all levels in a typical primary classroom. Things that Elena has mastered or moved beyond, we can put up until the next child is getting ready for them. But we will still be looking at expanding the school area significantly. We don't need that much "living space," especially since we get so much use of the outdoors here.
Second, Elena has moved beyond most of our current materials. Which makes sense, since we got them over 18 months ago. We still have some uses for some of them, but we're stretching it. For example, Elena is very comfortable with recognizing and naming numerals, which is a major goal of the counting spindles that we have (as well as the sandpaper numbers, which we also have). But I've been using the counting spindles lately to help her by providing a concrete aid for addition and subtraction, and they have worked well for that. (For anyone who's curious, we would look at the math problem in one of her workbooks, say 6 - 4 and instead of just using her fingers we'd pull out six spindles from the six box and then take away four... you get the picture. She really enjoys this.) Similarly, the main purpose of the sandpaper letters is to help the child get a sensorial feel for the letter while connecting it to the sound. She pretty much has the letter sounds down (for the short sounds), but the sandpaper letters have become useful again for helping her trace out how to write the letters. (In general, her reading and math comprehension is better than her writing--she recognizes and uses all the numerals, but can't reliably write them all--though I don't think this is a problem and may be pretty normal.) Hopefully we can convince some generous grandparents to help out with some materials for Christmas and her birthday (goodness knows she has enough toys. Besides, she loves using the materials and having "school time").
Other things she's been doing lately: While taking inventory of our materials, I realized that the only moveable alphabet we have are her bath letters (we may have a magnet set somewhere... hm...). She does a LOT of her word-building while in the bath. She likes to sound out words and spell them out with the letters, but she also frequently requests to build words that pull on spelling principles that we haven't gone over with her much if at all. In her last bath, for example, she wanted to build both "snake" and "snail," and thus got introduced to the idea that the /ei/ sound can come from both "a_e" and "ai." She also requested to build several anatomy terms. She's really into her anatomy, so I've been very grateful to have my parents around to answer all her questions about "what muscle is this?"
She was also given a sticker book almost a year ago when she was out with Erich visiting family in Iowa. It kind of made me want to vomit with all the pink and sparkles, but months later I was looking through it and found that it's pretty educational. And she loves to use it. The activities in there use the stickers to practice basic math (addition and subtraction), shapes, matching, etc. Plus there are some pages that are simply "decorate this how you please," which I also think is important. At this point, she's almost worked through the whole thing. I like that for many of the activities, I can read her the instructions, set her up with the appropriate stickers, and let her go at it. She then has me check her work at the end of each activity.
She also has a couple of pre-K workbooks that we've gotten for her. We've had them for a while now--at least a year, I think, but they're large and include a good variety of things. Lately she's been looking back through them and correcting some of the "mistakes" she made when she first went through some of the pages. Also, she is able to do many of the activities independently when previously she needed more coaching. For example, she can match the numeral to the picture with that number of objects without any help now, but she still needs some coaching in walking through the addition and subtraction problems. She does much of the work on her own, but can't quite be left to do the whole page on her own. She seems to be able to spend a lot more time on the workbooks now and enjoys them a lot. I think they're fitting nicely into her Zone of Proximal Development right now. :)
And I think I'll leave it at that for now.
Oh!--one last thought. In my cleaning, I found Sheep in a Jeep which was for a while a much favoured book. I think it'll be a great time to bring it back out, though, because she's doing well with the /ee/ sound being produced by two "e's" and may be able to read a good bit of the book herself now. We'll see. But I plan to try it soon.
Though we don't have any of the elementary child materials other than the posters that Erich made, we have a full set of the teacher materials (descriptions of lessons and how they might be sequenced, etc). We do not have this for the primary materials. Now that I've been home more, I've been wanting to learn things to do with the primary materials. Since I cleaned up her school area, Elena has been requesting to use the materials a lot and I'm not a huge fan of just making things up (because when I read the real lesson... it's always better). So we've been trying to put together lesson materials (for the teacher) for the materials we have, as well as getting a way to track what lessons Elena's given and when she follows up on them other than just sporadic mentions on this blog. Before diving into the elementary material during his certification, Erich did go through a condensed primary training, so he had some materials tucked away that we found. He hadn't been required to make full books for each subject like he was for the elementary stuff, so they're not complete by any means. The other great resource that we've found is infomontessori.com, which has descriptions of the lessons and sequences for much of the curriculum.
We were feeling a bit overwhelmed with how to keep track of everything (as well as how to organize our own notebook of lessons for the teacher), but finally settled on doing it based on the materials that we actually have. I took an inventory of our materials and made a spreadsheet divided (by sheets) into the four major topic areas for primary (Practical Life, Language, Math, Sensorial). Then on each sheet I have the materials we have (including the non-montessori ones) and am hoping to get on there the appropriate lessons so we can note the dates they're presented and followed-up on.
What this highlighted were two big things: First, we really don't have many materials. For example, the only language materials we have are the print, lowercase, sandpaper letters and the laminated words cards that we made with pictures for matching games. (Fortunately, I think her language skills are progressing just fine, given the abundance and utility of non-official materials for language like, you know, books, paper, and writing utensils.) Erich pointed out that a typical Montessori primary classroom is about the size of our whole living room area. Currently, we have all Elena's school things in one small corner. Now, I think we can get away with a smaller space because we don't have to have out materials for all levels in a typical primary classroom. Things that Elena has mastered or moved beyond, we can put up until the next child is getting ready for them. But we will still be looking at expanding the school area significantly. We don't need that much "living space," especially since we get so much use of the outdoors here.
Second, Elena has moved beyond most of our current materials. Which makes sense, since we got them over 18 months ago. We still have some uses for some of them, but we're stretching it. For example, Elena is very comfortable with recognizing and naming numerals, which is a major goal of the counting spindles that we have (as well as the sandpaper numbers, which we also have). But I've been using the counting spindles lately to help her by providing a concrete aid for addition and subtraction, and they have worked well for that. (For anyone who's curious, we would look at the math problem in one of her workbooks, say 6 - 4 and instead of just using her fingers we'd pull out six spindles from the six box and then take away four... you get the picture. She really enjoys this.) Similarly, the main purpose of the sandpaper letters is to help the child get a sensorial feel for the letter while connecting it to the sound. She pretty much has the letter sounds down (for the short sounds), but the sandpaper letters have become useful again for helping her trace out how to write the letters. (In general, her reading and math comprehension is better than her writing--she recognizes and uses all the numerals, but can't reliably write them all--though I don't think this is a problem and may be pretty normal.) Hopefully we can convince some generous grandparents to help out with some materials for Christmas and her birthday (goodness knows she has enough toys. Besides, she loves using the materials and having "school time").
Other things she's been doing lately: While taking inventory of our materials, I realized that the only moveable alphabet we have are her bath letters (we may have a magnet set somewhere... hm...). She does a LOT of her word-building while in the bath. She likes to sound out words and spell them out with the letters, but she also frequently requests to build words that pull on spelling principles that we haven't gone over with her much if at all. In her last bath, for example, she wanted to build both "snake" and "snail," and thus got introduced to the idea that the /ei/ sound can come from both "a_e" and "ai." She also requested to build several anatomy terms. She's really into her anatomy, so I've been very grateful to have my parents around to answer all her questions about "what muscle is this?"
She was also given a sticker book almost a year ago when she was out with Erich visiting family in Iowa. It kind of made me want to vomit with all the pink and sparkles, but months later I was looking through it and found that it's pretty educational. And she loves to use it. The activities in there use the stickers to practice basic math (addition and subtraction), shapes, matching, etc. Plus there are some pages that are simply "decorate this how you please," which I also think is important. At this point, she's almost worked through the whole thing. I like that for many of the activities, I can read her the instructions, set her up with the appropriate stickers, and let her go at it. She then has me check her work at the end of each activity.
She also has a couple of pre-K workbooks that we've gotten for her. We've had them for a while now--at least a year, I think, but they're large and include a good variety of things. Lately she's been looking back through them and correcting some of the "mistakes" she made when she first went through some of the pages. Also, she is able to do many of the activities independently when previously she needed more coaching. For example, she can match the numeral to the picture with that number of objects without any help now, but she still needs some coaching in walking through the addition and subtraction problems. She does much of the work on her own, but can't quite be left to do the whole page on her own. She seems to be able to spend a lot more time on the workbooks now and enjoys them a lot. I think they're fitting nicely into her Zone of Proximal Development right now. :)
And I think I'll leave it at that for now.
Oh!--one last thought. In my cleaning, I found Sheep in a Jeep which was for a while a much favoured book. I think it'll be a great time to bring it back out, though, because she's doing well with the /ee/ sound being produced by two "e's" and may be able to read a good bit of the book herself now. We'll see. But I plan to try it soon.
15 October 2009
A couple language ideas
I just suggested Elena write "list" at the top of a list she was making (scribbling). I broke up the word for her, since she wasn't doing it herself: (by sounds) L - I - S - T. She interpreted the "ih" as an "E", and had difficulty writing the "S" -- it came out looking like a misshapen "E".
Presentations to be used to help this:
* Sound games (middle sounds), to distinguish words that differ "i" and "e" short vowel sounds in the middle of the word. E.g. "pen" and "pin". "wit" and "wet". "Nick" and "neck".
* Sandpaper letter "S"
Presentations to be used to help this:
* Sound games (middle sounds), to distinguish words that differ "i" and "e" short vowel sounds in the middle of the word. E.g. "pen" and "pin". "wit" and "wet". "Nick" and "neck".
* Sandpaper letter "S"
30 September 2009
Progress in some areas
1. Elena has become interested in spelling and reading non-short-vowel words (bathtime letters help a lot with this--it seems to be a very receptive, relaxed time for her to learn things).
2. Elena came to me and recited almost the entire Our Father by heart. She couldn't think of the last phrase ("But deliver us from evil") but had the rest of it. She seemed to fake some of the words, though, not quite pronouncing them right or glossing over them a bit. But it's good progress.
3. I was very proud of Elena recently. She came up to me as people were socializing and kids were playing after church and said that two girls had said that she couldn't play with them. Rather than getting upset, she explained the situation, said that she didn't know why they didn't want her to play, but simply, "I'm going to find some other kids to play with instead."
2. Elena came to me and recited almost the entire Our Father by heart. She couldn't think of the last phrase ("But deliver us from evil") but had the rest of it. She seemed to fake some of the words, though, not quite pronouncing them right or glossing over them a bit. But it's good progress.
3. I was very proud of Elena recently. She came up to me as people were socializing and kids were playing after church and said that two girls had said that she couldn't play with them. Rather than getting upset, she explained the situation, said that she didn't know why they didn't want her to play, but simply, "I'm going to find some other kids to play with instead."
25 September 2009
Olfactory bulbs
In another discussion, Elena and I discussed some of the differences between dogs' sense of smell and humans. She said that "dogs smell everything!" I talked about the olfactory bulbs in the brain and how dogs' olfactory bulbs are much larger than humans' olfactory bulbs. When I asked her later if she could tell me the area of the brain that processed smell, she was able to answer correctly. (We didn't get into the role of the orbitofrontal cortex--I feel like that's a bit advanced for her)
Congestion
Today's morning lesson was on nasal congestion with a smattering of heredity/genetics. Elena awoke because she was having trouble breathing through her nose and inquired why. I explained that the two most likely explanations were illness and allergies. We discussed the difference between these--how one is a helpful effort to fight off a problematic foreign invader and the other is an immune system over-reaction to something that really isn't dangerous.
She inquired why she would have allergies (since I don't think she's sick and genuinely think she may finally be developing allergies like the rest of the family) and we discussed what genes are briefly and how they code for different aspects of the phenotype, including allergies.
She inquired why she would have allergies (since I don't think she's sick and genuinely think she may finally be developing allergies like the rest of the family) and we discussed what genes are briefly and how they code for different aspects of the phenotype, including allergies.
21 September 2009
Bible stories
Elena eats far more slowly than the rest of the family. As she was finishing up her food, she handed me a small bible and asked me to read to her while she ate (she very firmly stated that she wanted me to read out of the adult bible, not the kids bible). I asked if there were anything in particular she wanted me to read.
"When Mary was born."
"That's not in the bible. The bible doesn't have everything in it."
"Read to me about when Mary died!" (She's been thinking a lot about this since Dormition.)
"That's not in there, either."
"What about when Jesus died?"
"Yes, that's there."
So I read to her about the crucifixion from Luke. She had questions at several points, but she did NOT like it when I paraphrased rather than reading straight from the bible. She enjoyed being able to anticipate the resurrection. She still has trouble with the idea of the soul being separate from the body, though, even in Jesus. She has been thinking a lot about death lately and asking lots of questions about it.
"When Mary was born."
"That's not in the bible. The bible doesn't have everything in it."
"Read to me about when Mary died!" (She's been thinking a lot about this since Dormition.)
"That's not in there, either."
"What about when Jesus died?"
"Yes, that's there."
So I read to her about the crucifixion from Luke. She had questions at several points, but she did NOT like it when I paraphrased rather than reading straight from the bible. She enjoyed being able to anticipate the resurrection. She still has trouble with the idea of the soul being separate from the body, though, even in Jesus. She has been thinking a lot about death lately and asking lots of questions about it.
"I don't want to die!"
Our evening discussion last night centered around death. Elena felt her ribs and asked if they were indeed her ribs. I confirmed. She then asked, "This is all dead people have? When you die all your skin gets ripped off?" I investigated where this idea came from (likely seeing skeletons in pictures and icons) and tried to explain that it's not that your skin gets ripped off--it's just that your bones are the last thing to decompose (she really didn't seem to grasp this and held on to the skin-ripped-off idea). We then had a discussion of the state of the soul after bodily death. The idea that one's soul would continue living after the death of the body was very difficult for her (as, I suppose, it should be--it is an unnatural state). She was comforted by her previous discussion with my mother about Jesus walking the earth again and her getting a new resurrection body after the Second Coming. But she kept insisting that she doesn't want to die. I tried my best to explain that everyone dies (well, almost everyone) and that, God willing, what awaits her is better than this life. She wasn't really having it. I'm not sure if she's truly concerned about her own mortality or if she's just concerned about her skin being ripped off. Regardless, it was an interesting discussion.
19 September 2009
Schoolish stuff
Elena is starting to get better with the days of the week. I have a hard time thinking of this as a school activity, but kids have to learn it somewhere, right? And maybe it's something they work on in traditional preschools. Regardless, she shows a LOT of interest in it and is always asking what day it is.
Today, when Elena requested to play a game, we played a modified version of dominoes. At her level of development, I think this is an educational activity. Actually, the initial sorting to sift out the double-six set was particularly educational as she evaluated each domino to determine whether there was a side that was more than six. Up to this point, we haven't worked on "more than/less than" much, except incidentally. She was able to enjoy the dominoes game, though she was disappointed that it was a game with only one winner.
Today, when Elena requested to play a game, we played a modified version of dominoes. At her level of development, I think this is an educational activity. Actually, the initial sorting to sift out the double-six set was particularly educational as she evaluated each domino to determine whether there was a side that was more than six. Up to this point, we haven't worked on "more than/less than" much, except incidentally. She was able to enjoy the dominoes game, though she was disappointed that it was a game with only one winner.
18 September 2009
The Great Commission
Elena: My nose is an /m/. It goes up and down and up and down just like an /m/. Let me see yours.
Me: I can't show you right now. I'm driving. All human noses are like that. God made them that way.
Elena: (NO pause) Can we see God moving? Walking?
Me: Well, we can't, but the people who were around when Jesus was on the earth did.
Elena: Yeah, well, I want to.
Me: He'll be back.
Elena: Yeah, then He can keep me and walk with me and take me to the playground. I love God and I want to see Him. (pause) You need to tell everyone this story. They will love it. Tell EVERYONE at home. Tell EVERYONE. When you run out of people, find more people.
Me: I can't show you right now. I'm driving. All human noses are like that. God made them that way.
Elena: (NO pause) Can we see God moving? Walking?
Me: Well, we can't, but the people who were around when Jesus was on the earth did.
Elena: Yeah, well, I want to.
Me: He'll be back.
Elena: Yeah, then He can keep me and walk with me and take me to the playground. I love God and I want to see Him. (pause) You need to tell everyone this story. They will love it. Tell EVERYONE at home. Tell EVERYONE. When you run out of people, find more people.
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