Reading lessons

Two days ago, when it was nice outside and Sasha was playing on her swing set, I grabbed the book that I used to teach Cassie how to read, and started working on it with Sasha.
I should explain. Many years ago, when Cassie was four, I grabbed the same book and started to teach her phonics. Back then, in the early 90s, phonics were still not really the primary method of reading instruction. I believed so strongly in phonics that I took it upon myself to teach her. And thank goodness I did. Her kindergarten and first grade classes were still using methods of reading instruction that make me cringe (memorization, NOT phonics. No wonder we have so many problems with dyslexia!).
A strong reader right before her fifth birthday, Cassie was definitely a reading success. She has been a perfect speller, and a grammar fiend her entire life. When she was five, I could hand her a newspaper and have her read aloud any article to me, without fear that she'd encounter words that she couldn't pronounce. She may not have comprehended an article about economic implications of middle east sanctions, but it sure sounded cool when she read it out loud. I have video of her, at age 4, writing letters to people by herself, and sounding out words so that she could spell them. It was awesome.

Since I have the experience of teaching a child to read, I realized back then that if I had more children, I could start the process sooner. I will be better at it the second time around. I have a few benchmarks of readiness and Sasha has passed my prerequisites (a few games we play). So it's time. No pressure though. If there is any problems, I will gladly put this project off for a break.

But it's been fun! And Sasha is honestly catching on! She read her first word, phonetically today. It was the word "am". It's a start. She is able to phonetically identify the letters M, A, and S. The lessons themselves are very tiny micro-lessons. Barely 5-7 minutes each, one per day, and only done when we're both in a good mood and having fun with something else (like on the swing set!). I am flexible and patient, so if I encounter any resistance, I just stop. Toddler attention spans are very short. So far, she enjoys her lessons, and we catch her repeating her phonics to herself very quietly when she's playing by herself.

Children's minds are amazing little sponges and will absorb what they are taught. We'll see how it goes.

My resources:
Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is the book I'm using today
Why Johnny Can't Read: And What You Can Do about It Good book for it's time and has a reading primer to teach reading at the end of it. Phonics are more accepted today than a decade or two ago, so the first half of the book can be skipped.
Both books might be "outdated" but they worked for me in the 90s with my first child and I stick with what I know.

Pondering my blog

I've been lax with updating this blog since we moved to Montana back in June. Mostly because my routine was completely disrupted. I've been busy and not really chained to my computer as much as I used to.
Also, I have been thinking and wondering exactly how long am I going to keep doing this blog anyways?
For example, my older daughter Cassie is 15, almost 16. For almost as long as I've been keeping this blog, Cassie cringes and yells at me if I write or post a pic, or reference anything about her at all. She's old enough to tell me, "Mom! I really feel uncomfortable when you publish something about me in your blog".
Sasha, however, is not of an age to tell me that. I hope that someday she can look back and see that this was a labor of love. But this is definitely not a lifelong work. I can not see myself blogging about her when she's a teen. Can you imagine me in my 70's, still blogging about my 50-something child? That would be rediculous. Anyways, my point is that at some point, there is an end. I'm still trying to figure out at what point that is.
I might still have another year of blogging to go. We shall see!

Spring

Earlier this week, we had some nice weather. After being cooped-up indoors all winter, Sasha was excited to finally go outside and play on her awesome jungle gym in the back yard.
So to keep myself amused, I took out my camera and took a few pictures. While I like them all, the first one really strikes me and is now my favorite:
I LOVE this picture!
Swinging
A big smile right as she was about to slide down her slide.

February 2010- Winter fun

Christmas 2009

Catching up on a few pics from Christmas time, 2009.
Cassie
Cassie
Opening presents
Excited, jumping for joy at the present she just opened.
Shameless! She picks her nose and when we tell her to stop, she says "NO! I want to pick my nose". So I took this pic to blackmail her when she grows up.

Autumn

Just a few pics from autumn 2009:
Autumn fairy
Sasha is giving her big sister the "I'm watching you" sign and glare.
Cassie spent days slaving away, raking leaves

Pumpkin Pie

My little helper likes pumpkin pie.
A few weeks ago, my husband was given a BUNCH of small pie pumpkins by a local farmer. After baking and pureeing one pumpkin, I found that each pumpkin yields me about two pies each. That's a lot of pies. We have at least 10 pumpkins, and I've baked about 6 pies so far. Six down, fourteen to go. So we've been busy. I've been able to bake and store a few pumpkins worth of puree in the freezer, and it seems to bake okay after freezing.
Fortunately, we love the pies.

Kisses in her pocket

As I posted before, Sasha has this cute thing she does when she says goodbye to someone. She gives them an extra "kiss" for them to put in their pocket and take with them. Usually this is for my husband when he leaves for work in the morning.
Yesterday, she noticed the sweater she was wearing had pockets on it. I was in a silly mood, and gave her a kiss and told her to put in in her pocket. She gave me a quizzical look and asked me, "Now I can go to work?!?"
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Vanity

I know I still have to at least post about Sasha's third birthday and her party, which occurred almost a month ago. But I wanted to share this picture of the vanity table set that Sasha received for her birthday. Her grandma and dad built it for her and it's quite cute.
She also received many costumes and children's play make-up, so that she can play dress-up. Yesterday, we finally got the vanity set with storage bench moved into her room and she is able to play with it now. In the picture above, she is brushing her hair at her vanity table.

Winter?

Apparently they don't believe in autumn in Montana. One day a few weeks ago (and every day before it), it was sweltering 90+ degrees. Then overnight the chill set in, and we've been getting snow. I think we did get a day of autumn, so Sasha got to jump in the leaves:

Like I said, we barely had a day or two of "autumn". This is what we have now:

Sasha wants to play in the snow, but we don't quite have all that she needs to safely play in the cold and stay warm. She has her boots and jacket, but we still need to get her some mittens and snow pants. Once we get that, I think my little girl will live in the snow.
Here we are putting our child to work:



Okay, we let Sasha play outside for a few minutes. She insisted she wanted to shovel the way she saw her big sister do it when we demanded Cassie shovel our sidewalks.

Heart

This cute little exchange occurred between Sasha and her dad.
Sasha was examining the pockets of her father's jacket.
Sasha: Dad, what's in your pockets?
Dad: Nothing, they're empty
Sasha: Put something in them!
Dad: Okay, how about you put a kiss in my pocket for me? That way I'll always have a Sasha kiss with me.
Sasha puts a kiss in her dad's jacket pocket.

Then later, my husband told Sasha that he was happy he had her kiss in his pocket, because he had her kiss by his heart all day at work. She grabbed him by his collar, pulled him close, and gave him a kiss on his heart.

That time of year again

First day of school for Cassie. She started her Sophomore year today at her new school. I hope that she does well and makes a ton of new friends.
Fortunately, she joined the volleyball team, and they've already been practicing all last week, so Cassie got to meet a few girls there. She didn't make the varsity or junior varsity team, but she did make their "C" team, and she's happy with that for this year. So far she's having fun with it, and I'm glad for that.

Speaking of Cassie, the neighbors have a kid that's a month older than her. When he first met her a month ago, it appears he was smitten with her. He was her shadow, following her around everywhere. He broke up with his girlfriend (but lied and told Cassie that his girlfriend broke up with him) and asked Cassie out. Cassie wisely said no, and eventually found his constant attention smothering. She's been avoiding him, and he went back to his old girlfriend again. (This was the same kid that accidentally shot me with a bb gun the other day, lol).


And here's an amusing pic. Neighbor boy pulled up a lawn chair and stalked...er...I mean camped next to our fence in the hopes of seeing Cassie while she was avoiding him. This was our view outside our dining room for a week.
Thank goodness school has started again :)

Wtf?

I got shot in my arm by a neighbor kid with a BB gun today. Ouch! The part that scares me though, is that if I was not on our swings with Sasha at the time, the BB would have hit her in her head instead of my arm. Fortunately, it was just my arm, and it was just a bb gun.
The story goes like this.
Sasha and I went outside to play. We were content to sit on lawn chairs, but I kept hearing a strange sound coming from our playset. It sounded like someone was either throwing rocks at it, or it sounded like it was raining an occasional rock onto the playset. I couldn't quite catch what was going on, as the intervals between when it happened was over 5 minutes between each time. There didn't seem to be anyone around, so I walked over to the playset to investigate after about the fourth or fifth time.
Sasha is my little shadow. She followed me to the playset, and since we were at the playset, she wanted to play. I couldn't find anything wrong with the playset, no explanation for the strange sounds, and dismissed it as maybe my imagination.
Sasha demanded I sit on the swings and swing with her. I enjoy swinging with her, so I complied. I sat in the blue swing closest to the slide, and she sat in the red swing next to me.
We were having fun, playing and swinging. We stopped swinging and we were just sitting still in the swings. The swings are comfortable to sit on, and I enjoy just sitting on the swings while reading. I read a book for a little while.
Then suddenly, BAM. My left arm hurt like heck. I looked at my arm and there was a red mark where I got shot by something. I wasn't quite sure what. I screamed and realized that the noises I heard earlier were probably bb gun shots from the neighbor kid (a friend of Cassie's, honestly a good kid), and that he shot me. I yelled loudly to my husband in our house, "Ow! They shot me!". But Jon couldn't hear me since the house was closed up so I ran up to the window of the room he was in and yelled for him. Then I panicked because Sasha was still at the swingset, so I had to run back to get her the heck out of there.
Jon, fortunately, didn't hear the "They shot me part", or he probably would have come out armed. He took Sasha, still unaware of what happened. I wasn't exactly stopping to explain. I was livid.
I marched myself out the yard and to the neighbor kids two houses down. The neighbor kid was laying on a mat, in a prone supported position, with his bb gun. I yelled at him, "Hey! You shot me!"
He looked at me horrified. I showed him my arm. He seemed really surprised and confused. I looked at his setup. He was laying down, bb gun pointed toward our yard. Between him and the yard, there was a target, some trash cans and boxes (he lined them up to catch the bb pellets), and then some bushes obscuring our playset. Well I guess he thought his trash cans and boxes would catch the bb pellets after he shot them. Unfortunately, it wasn't working. Either his aim was off, or something was wrong with his system. He really did think that his trash cans and wooden boxes would prevent the bb's from going beyond his target practice.
I felt better knowing that at least he didn't intentionally shoot me. My arm hurt, but it was just a bb, not a real gun. It'll heal.
The part that scares me, however, is Sasha. If I was not in that swing, my wound was at her head level. I was DIRECTLY between her and the incoming bb round. If I was NOT sitting at that exact spot. If I had said, "No sweetie, I don't want to swing today. You can swing by yourself like a big girl", she would have been shot in her head/eye level with the bb pellet. And that would have done a lot more damage to her than to my arm.
That's the part that pissed my husband off. He was very upset and went over to the neighbor's kids house. He talked to the kid's mom and told her she needs to take away his bb gun. She said she would take care of it immediately, then the neighbor kid came by our house a few minutes later to apologize again (presumably under his mother's orders).
I know the kid was sorry. He truly was. For that, I feel bad that he probably got in trouble. I still can't seem to calm my husband down but he's very protective of Sasha.

Catering in the middle of nowhere

My mother-in-law owns a restauraunt, and she frequently does catering as well. Sometimes she has to go to some odd locations. In this particular case, she was catering for a dog show for a bunch of sheep-herding dogs, and it was held on a ranch out in the middle of nowhere. She invited us to come out for an hour or two to take a look at the scenery. So when I saw that covered wagon sitting out there, I just had to take a pic.
The grass was quite tall, but Sasha didn't mind. She and Cassie searched the grasses for all sorts of strange bugs.

Cassie posed with some grass :P

Mud

After a good quick rainfall, we stepped outside to do some yardwork. Sasha couldn't resist the puddles. Oh she got so dirty and it took a bit of restraint on my part to grab the camera instead of snatching her out of the mud.




This puddle was in our front driveway. The high school is across the street.