The Three R's: Reading, Writing and Refining

    Education for us happens whenever and wherever. It's continual; there is always something to be learned. My girls are extremely inquisitive, and soak up any and most information. Any  'formal education' requiring daily lessons or books, has not really happened. Given that Evelynn is four, we've not had an 'official' school year or set goals for learning. Her persistence in wanting to learn to read and write helped to decide that now is a good time to get started. So our school year started this last Tuesday, our first goals aimed at reading, writing, arithmetic, and since I have an affinity for history, a start with the U.S. presidents and world landmarks.

    Evelynn is in absolute heaven over the alphabets and their sounds. She has impressed me with her knowledge of recognizing the letters, knowing their individual sounds, and even corresponding words for most of the letters. She knows that 'Q' has a partner, the letter 'U'. The title of this post, as you read, mentions refining. The refining would be my education, the ways I teach, the methods I use for patience (oh, my). Evelynn has had a good start, but why, of all the twenty-six letters in the alphabet, can she not recognize or remember the sound for 'A'? We have talked about the alphabet for years now. If she knows Q, X, K, W, and Y, what's the deal with 'A'?

    Writing has had an interesting beginning. She has written letters on her magna doodle for many, many months. So in my everything-has-a-place, perfectionist, stay-in-the-lines world, the writing tablet with the lines for learning to write upper case and lower case levels should have been sheer heaven. I happen to have a sincere love for blank, colleg-ruled paper that I can neatly fill up-- within the lines. Not so with Evelynn. It's "No, Mom... that's not how you write that letter." or "How about I write it like this?"-- the tablet turned, so the lines are vertical. What has she done to the beautiful paper?? "Okay, how about you just keep practicing your letters on your magna doodle." Thankfully, I have chosen to teach her cursive first. She loves swooshes and flourishes.

John Adams

    Caelan is not one to be left out of anything, so she takes part in all but the writing portion. My one room school house (dining room table) is learning the first three U.S. presidents and three world landmarks right now. The girls love it. I have flash cards with a portrait of the presidents and then brief, pertinent information on the back. Right now, we're going for portrait recognition. George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. One of the landmarks is Mt. Rushmore, where two of these presidents are carved. George Washington is down, no problem. Caelan says 'John' Washington every once in a while, but I'm impressed my two year old can remember and say 'Washington.' Evelynn can never remember John Adams, other than telling me she doesn't like his hairs. Apparently the fashion of the day for hair style is not to her liking. Caelan knows John Adams every time. We've finally hurdled past Thomas Jefferson, too. They get Thomas every time, it's just his last name. Surprisingly, Evelynn at first called him Thomas 'Mendelssohn.' It was a pleasant surprise to find she thought he was also a composer.

    Arithmetic at this point is just number recognition. Both girls can count to twenty, but recognition does try my patience. Maybe because of my own aversion to numbers? I hope not. Good thing their dad has no problems in that area. Reading, Writing and Refining... one week down, a bazillion more to go. Not a bad start.