Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Educational Delights

The elder of our monkeys did the second lesson of How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons this morning over breakfast (at her insistence) and howled for more (almost literally). We told her that if she was good she could do another lesson tonight. There was much sssss-ing and mmmmmm-ing around the Darwin household this morning.

The only catch is, she doesn't really like writing the letters herself. She'd much rather instruct us in writing them for her. Still, she gamely filled a page with some M and S of her own construction, with regular variations in design just to keep things interesting.

We're thinking we'll launch into another chapter book that we already have, so Stewart Little or Charlotte's Web is probably next up on that front. I'm thinking probably Stewart Little.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you're off to a good start! Don't worry about the writing...alot of kids learn to read before they're interested in writing and she is only 3...my daughter was reading at age 3 but wasn't really interested in writing much until she was about 5..(and I'm not completely talking off the top of my head here...I do have my degrees in early childhood development and elementary educ.)It sometimes takes longer for those small motor skills to develop to the point where they feel comfortable writing.
Actually, my daughter didn't really learn to read with the phonics method...she just sat on my lap and listened to me read the same stories over and over again (until I thought I would lose my mind!) She did memorize those stories, but by sitting on my lap looking at the book, she started actually being able to recognize the words themselves. She took off after that without much trouble and flew through phonics instruction. My boys were a different story...even though I read to them over and over, it took Michael a bit longer to learn to read and poor John (who we adopted at age 2 after severe neglect) needed to learn to read through the phonics method.(slowly..."sigh") He's not in the normal range of development however.
Lots of people I know have used that book (100 lessons) and have loved it...different methods for different people. With my boys, I had more luck using Sound Beginnings by Julia Fogassy.
I also wanted to ask what edition of Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum you have. With the age of Darwin and his siblings, you may have an older edition and her newer editions have many more resources and options in them. End of lecture..hehe...
Hope you're having a blessed day...Darwin's family and yours remain in my prayers..

Fidei Defensor said...

Darwin, in response to your comment on my blog about the CMP Garands.

I have found that no community is more prone to rummors than the millitary surplus rifle community however.

The best info I have indicates that CMP has something like 20,000 Garands left, once these are gone, they are gone forever.

If I were in the position to buy now I would. Just think had you bought 5 years ago you could have got them for half what you pay now.

Buy 2. Keep the best one, sell the other one in a few years it will prbly cover the cost of both. When I got my Enfield (September 04)they were $79 bucks now they are $200 in stores.