Chalk another one up to 'them knowing more than you think'

A couple of nights ago, Colin was stalling. He had already been tucked into bed, but a few minutes later, he came to my room with his classic technique:

"Mommy, I just want to snuggle with you."

Most nights, I can't resist that one... I let him climb in bed next to me and we talk about his day, or we watch youtube clips of Ina or Giada cooking, or I check my Google Reader or whatever. He usually conks within a few minutes.

This night, though, it was late, and I knew he needed to hit the sack. "Not tonight, buddy." I said.  "We'll snuggle tomorrow."

"Can I go down and say goodnight to Daddy?"

Now, this had already been done--twice--but I said, "Sure.  Go say goodnight to Daddy, but then come right back and get in bed."

As I guessed would happen, he was gone for a little while. I figured that he was just pulling more stall tactics with Shane...but after about 10 minutes, he came back with an index card in his hand.

Now, if you didn't know, my Colin is quite the artist. He loves anything he can create, paint, put together, cut, glue, form, or fashion. This night, however, he 'created' my favorite project to date.

"Mom, look what I did with this alphabet card!"

(A couple of years ago, I made some flashcards to help Colin learn and memorize his alphabet. Score on the creativity, I know...he definitely didn't get the artistic side from me.)

I grabbed the card and took a look.

Awww! I thought. Look what he did with the "M" letter! 
He spelled out Mom. Such a smart little guy.

Then, I flipped the card over and got the biggest chuckle of the week--and
some more of those warm, fuzzy feelings only your littles can give you.

 And, in case you can't interpret a first grader's spelling, it says:

"I love you so much that I think that my head will fall off.  I love you Mom."

Aaaaaaand....

....in my bed he climbed.

Best.Ever.Stalling.Technique. 

Ever.

The letter "E" "F" and "G"

I realized today that I haven't done a Letter Project post in a while. So, in the interest of keeping those who want to know up to speed on Colin's progress during learning time....here you go.

The Letter "E"

Colin found:

1. Someone eating
2. the letter "E" from a scrabble piece
3. someone exercising
4. Elmo
5. the earth {That one required a little help from me, simply because the beginning sound of the word is not at all consistent with the phonics of "E". I never realized until I started teaching the phonics of the English language how many words actually do not follow the 'rules' of phonics! For example: of ("Where's the "V" Mommy?"); to ("But there's not two "O"s, Mommy!"), all ("No, Mommy, it doesn't have an "O" in front of it. "A" says "aaaaa." It's "Al"."). I could go on and on....)
6. an egg
7. and an envelope

Up to this point, I was still printing all of the objects' names on the paper when Colin was done gluing.

That, however, changed with our last two projects, as Colin has been beginning to read and spell on his own. This, don'tchaknow, has been very, very exciting for me.

The "F" project:

Colin found the following items:

1. a flag
2. a couple different pictures of fish--goldfish, but still fish nonetheless
3. a flower
4. a couple of frogs
5. a football
6. feet
7. fingers
8. a fork

You can see on both of the pictures that he wrote the words all by himself. (At least, I hope you don't think that is my handwriting....) Colin sounded out as many as he could, and I spelled the rest for him and he wrote them down.

The "G" project:
Colin found:

1. two guitars
2. a gorilla
3. a gift
4. Grover
5. a glove
6. a pair of glasses
   

It truly is very exciting to watch him learn. He has come so far in just a few months! This (teaching him) is difficult for a variety of reasons--mainly, Thing 1 and Thing 2 who are constantly at my feet *giggle*--but it really is so rewarding to sit down with Colin and hear him read a book out loud to me. I feel so privileged that, even if I am not able to 'school' Colin forever, I got to do some of this fundamental early learning with him. We have great memories, that's for sure!

The Letter "D"

Colin made sure to explain to me that, "This picture is of a daddy, not my Daddy."

Oh! Okay. Whew!

The "dandelions" are actually mums, and the "dryer" was actually a washer....but he was close enough, so we went for it! I was just excited that he found those things all by himself.

And dirty? Come on. Only a boy, right?

The Letter "C"

Onward we go in the alphabet....



And, I must say, Colin is improving each time he does a new project. We are way ahead of this in actual letter learning (he is up to writing and learning phonics on "K", if anyone cares) but we are a little slower doing these projects because they take quite a bit of time.



Everyday when we do learning time, though, I can see (if even slight) improvements in his grasp of things. Here is what he came up with for "C":

• Cats
• Car
• Coats
• Carrot
• Cookie
• Clock
• Cup
• Calendar
• Capri Sun

I must say, I was most impressed with Calendar and Capri Sun. :-) I know he knew what a calendar was, but I didn't think he would recognize it. Sooner or later, I am going to realize he knows more than I do....

Did I mention that Colin loves scissors? He would play with them all day if I let him! *grin* And no paper would go unsnipped.....

The Letter B

This time, I wised up a little with the letter project.



Instead of making poor Colin leaf through every single remaining page of my Better Homes and Gardens, I went through it first and pulled out about 15 random pages that I spotted had something that began with the letter "B". Big, big time saver there. Plus, by about 130 pages in or so on project "A", his brain, I suspected, has started to shut down....



Poor kid. But I didn't realize before we actually did the project how long it would take, you know? I mean, I've got to give myself a break. I'm new at this whole teaching your child thing....I obviously will learn things along the way too! *giggle*

This time, it was a much quicker project, and one that I thought Colin got a much greater sense of satisfaction from. The fact alone that he didn't sit thumbing through the magazine for forever was big, but he actually did ALL of the finding, cutting, and gluing himself, with just a little "pre-help" from Mommy!

It was funny to listen to him, too....you could hear him say, "buh, buh, bed....yep!" or "buh, buh, flower....nope." He really is starting to get the hang of phonics, which is exciting.

Here is what he came up with:

• bowl
• books
• box
• bear
• bee
• beaver
• bird
• blueberry
• bed (and he wrote the word BED all by himself, too! I only helped him spell it)
• bacon--this one he found and cut out, but somehow it never made it to the page! Must have ended up in the garbage pile, I guess; but I'm giving him credit for it anyway!

Colin actually found the box and the blueberry on the backs of pages that I had given him--and I never even noticed that they were on there. On the front of the pages--what I had seen and torn out for him to use--were the bed and the bear. But Colin turned the pages over and found the other things. He sounded them out, put it together that they started with "B", cut them out, and glued them on all by himself. Imagine how I felt when I saw that! It really is the coolest thing watching something you are trying so hard to get through to them actually click!

Letter "C", up next!

The Letter A

Well, I have finally found a great use for my old magazines that I never know what in the world to do with.

If you follow my blog, you know that we decided to keep Colin home this year, and not enroll him into preschool. There were many reasons for our doing so, and everyday that goes by I am more and more glad for the decision we made. I know there are many who disagree with the idea of home schooling, or say, "I could never do that"; I was one of those people for a long time myself. But, I must say, what I thought it was going to be like really isn't how it has been at all, and I am really enjoying teaching him at home. It is really neat to see him learning right before my very eyes, and being able to watch the wheels turning while he is grasping new concepts and ideas. (Also, let me just say that the decision to keep Colin home was, so far, just for this year. What will we do about Kindergarten? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, that's what!)

We have been working on numbers (reading and writing them--we're up to 8 already!) and letters/phonics, as well as many other concepts and ideas. Colin's project this morning in our "learning time" was to look through a magazine for things that begin with the letter "A"; cut those items out; and then glue(stick) them onto construction paper.

Here is what he came up with:

He wrote the "A's" at the top of the paper

(and my scanner cut off part of the capital A)

then found:

• An arrow
• A real letter "A"
• 2 different pictures of apples
• An antler (really hard to see, I know)
• An ape
• And then the one I was most proud of--an "accident" (it is a picture of a lady wiping up spilled cereal!)

He also named a few other things that started with the letter "A"--an alligator and an axe, to be specific--but we didn't have any luck finding pictures of them in the September 2007 issue of Better Homes and Gardens. *giggle*

Keep watch for the presentation of the letter "B"--coming soon to a blog near you!