Sometimes in the midst of mind-blowing exhaustion, we get little glimpses into something very special that encourages us to keep on going and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Today I was so fortunate to experience this.
We usually homeschool in the family room in the little school area that I've set up. Today we had to do our schooling in Tiny B's and Strong B's very small room because my husband was having a client over. We own a small home business. So I lugged all of Tiny B's kinder stuff and Strong B's Mother Goose Time stuff into the room and set up the tables and we started. I'm still struggling with how to teach them at the same time, and I'm beginning to see that this probably won't be very effective for another two years. Strong B is four, and let's face it...Four year-olds are not independent creatures!
I set up Tiny B with her math and I pulled out Strong B's Experiencing More Literacy workbook from MGT. First he did a maze which led to "farm" things (being that that is this month's theme) and the letters to spell COW. He traced the letters and the maze and then was ready for another page. I decided to use one of my favorite activities in these workbooks, which is when they have an ending such as "at" and you pull a strip of letters through a slit to form words such as "cat," "mat," "sat," etc. Today's activity was the ending "en" and letters such as "P" and "T."
Strong B knows his letters and their sounds but he is very shy about it and lacks confidence for sure. I think that he sees his big sister doing all sorts of marvelous things (as he has for years now) and might feel intimidated. I MUST work on this! Anyway, we worked on what "en" sounds like and went over all of the letters on the strip, and as we pulled them through the barn, we read the letters. It wasn't easy and it definitely took me helping him and giving him plenty of cues. But as we did it again and again, he gained such confidence. Then he yelled, "Look at me! I'm reading!" Which he certainly was.
How sweet were those moments today. Crowded in a tiny room with two small children and a poodle puppy making shenanigans the whole time....Entirely annoying at first, but then entirely sweet and was this boy's first sweet experience of reading words by himself.
I pray that I never forget these sweet moments.
*I receive Mother Goose Time curriculum in exchange for my honest sharing of experiences, resulting from our personal use. All opinions/thoughts are my own and are in no way influenced by others.
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