bit by more

I remember this day twelve years ago.. and I am very different than I was then.  I know who I am better than I did then... maybe not always still where I am going.  I know we have a bright future but we have to work for it.

Esme was bubbly this morning, she wanted to do so much we had to run for the schoolbus.  Those extra 15 minutes I've been trying to incorporate every morning have been setting her up well - she thinks about rules, what she should do and not do, and has time to do some brain stretching exercises/worksheets so she can think about that when she is bored later.

She had a dream she wanted to make a drawing of.  Then she wanted to do the math sheets I had put out\ first.  She tried to draw the dream but looked at the clock and said she would finish it later (impressive, for her.. she hasn't done that often).  Then she really wanted me to write a story in her notebook to take to class and read during naptime.  I don't know what the teacher will think about that.  I sent her an email with an explanation and that I had laid out the rules for it if the teacher agreed.  1.) It comes out of the backpack during naptime - and then back in before snacktime.  2.) she does not bug the teacher(s) to write in it for more to read   3.) if they say no drawing/writing in it she has to just read and look at it.  We'll see what happens with it.  She wanted to read it on the bus this morning, too - so hope she does not lose it.

She was telling me all about the rules for books from the library.  They went over those last week - and she is excited to get to check out a book tomorrow.  She is a little upset some children are calling her ZipZip at school, for talking out of turn?  I'm not sure.  She didn't seem to know why they are saying it, but she says they lose their stickers for talking.  That could be one of those disconnect things where she knows what happens but not one happens because of the other etc..  We still get a lot of those.

Homeschool : We did 'more' on her worksheet for school.. it said to read all of the sentences and had pictures of words the kids did not know yet.  I had Esme tell me the word, write the word and color the pictures besides just reading it.  Then for morning I gave her a sheet of addition and a sheet of more vs. less.  She had trouble with the word 'less'... we will work more on it.  She understood 'more' but did have to think about it.  She had to think about 'more vs. less' much MORE than 2+2=4.. I want to introduce 'half' to her soon, but not until we have more and less worked out better.  Not to self : talk about 'equal' as well before we go to 'half'... more, less, equal.. two equal halves etc.

Esme watched a Minecraft video made by another child yesterday - and one of the things they had done was make an iron golem.  Esme was immediately in her Minecraft and making them, having them wander around in a glass cage (I did not help her find materials, I went to get coffee.. so she solved the cage problem on her own).  After a while she wandered outside to play with the garden hose and I saw this on my screen and took a screenshot.

She wanted to play checkers last night with her magnetic calendar.  She set up the board, and had half the rules right.. but then she was cheating.  I haven't brought up the rules to her before for this - she couldn't say where she learned them...kept interachanging 'chess' for 'checkers' and switching back.  So, I brought up internet checkers (no cheating, rules hardset) and she decided 3/4 of the way through the game against a HUMAN without cheating it was hard.  She had played the computer and won, but was still saying it felt hard.  Having a human block her moves she was more upset, and frustrated... which in this case is probably a good lesson.   I will look into making or buying a cheap gameset for her (we had one once don't know where it is) because it seems like something that is 'in line' with her way of thinking, as long as she follows the ruleset.

bit before I sew

Esme told me all about the big alphabet and animal book she gets to read now at school - she passed the letters test to get into reading instruction.  I'm very proud of her, which in a way seems a bit silly because I knew she could do it at the beginning of school.  She said she did not know her alphabet at the beginning of school (which, she did) and now she does, so now she can learn to read.  This is better than saying she could not read at all, when she can.  Good steps - and we will see how that progresses.

She told me about blue and gold hairclips with ribbons that the other girls have for blue and gold day.  I put yellow ribbons up in her hair around the tops of her braids and then braided them together.  I hope it lasts the day.  I need to get to the table and make some more clothes - the need-to-wash pile just keeps becoming more than the available to wear.  One of the two tshirts I bought as school clothes has already come apart in the sleeve, so I had to pull one of her handmade dresses out at the last minute when I saw it.  I have fabric set aside, and a new dress pattern that came in the mail that has a clever option between raglan or regular sleeves.  When I saw it, I had to get it... if you are a sewer a pattern that can choose regular or raglan sleeve construction is a head-tilter.. how did they do that?  I'll show you how.. it was actually fairly simple and elegant.

I should also go out to the garden today and check on the items that are left - lima beans, Daphne beans, Hopi String beans are starting to produce, cowpeas are producing in multitudes, the indian corn, the cucumbers and peppers... eventually we will need to mow much of it down and seed vetch to enrich the soil for next year. 

Happening around here...

Esme's reading skills are getting much better, and her math skills, as well.  I still don't know what if anything they are working on with her at school but she is diving deeper into her computer games like Starfall and PBS kids after school and calling them 'the best games ever.'  This morning she was standing at our kitchen counter eating her pre-bus snack and staring hard at the contents of the back of the counter while chewing.  I asked her what she was looking at, and she swallowed, then said out loud 'start with clean coffee maker and cold fresh water.'  She was reading the instructions on the coffee can.  She missed the word 'Always' and then said 'Steep by steep' for the 'step by step.'

 But, she can read fairly well - and it has become more and more evident the past few weeks as she notices writing on everything and is paying attention to what it says/could say to her.  She asked me why the drawings in her room from last year had tiny writing on the edges and why I didn't tell her it was there before -- it is my writing her name and date.  She got mad at me for that for several hours.. until I reminded her that she saw me write it back then and wasn't mad - so she shouldn't be mad about it now.  *roll eyes*

We started a chapter book last night on Daddy's half-mocking suggestion - thinking it would make her go to bed quicker.  Nope.. she was bouncing monkey style on her bed hanging from the canopy after the first few pages but I continued reading because she was interested in the story 'Wizard of Oz' and I could catch her eyes and get her to look at pictures or words here and there.  We read through the second chapter - and I asked her recap what had happened.  She told me she wanted Mom to redraw the pictures on new paper with colors, because they were black and white and rather roughly done.... I thwarted that with 'someday, not soon.'  She still doesn't get the concept of 'soon'... asked me about that the other day again - 'what is soon...'  'it is earlier than later, a few minutes, I'll get you out of the bathtub soon, etc..' 

We did some math the other day as well - she knows what the '+' and '=' means.  I think that is from Starfall as she is only getting 'trace the number' and 'draw one more shape' at school.  She piped up in one of our conversations where I had used the word 'addition' to tell me about those signs and that is what that is about, Mama.  She got almost every one of the one digit equations right that I asked her - and wrote me a couple as well including '2 + 20 = ?  Then she argued with me it could not be twenty-two... guess she felt that was cheating putting twenty and two together... then Mark said it really was, and I think I saw the 'light' in her eyes as she realized 'putting together'='addition' twenty-two...

I actually felt like I could start teaching her more about multiplication and other things a while back - she might be ready for it... but it might sabotage what they do at school although I don't know how....  it is so hard to tell because her homework still comes home 'color in the lines' and 'you didn't finish this' etc etc... She has the ability but I don't know how they are coming at her in the group of twenty-five.  I don't know if showing them what she can do will make them ignore what she needs help with (handwriting, by far.. she hates it) or push her harder like we do at home to get past the stubborn layer.   I made her finish one of the sheets that said 'not finished' last night with her homework and Mark thought it could be cruel... to add to her homework as much as I do .. but it doesn't seem cruel to me, because she is smart in those ways, and needs to be responsible as well, learn to complete things, to be neat, to write even if it seems hard, to follow the class rules etc.  That is what Kindergarten is going to be about for her, instead of learning 123 and ABC...

I should have been making her dress today because I close at the store tonight... but all I wanted was sleep...  had to write down a few of these before I forget them and wonder 'when' this happened.