100 lessons later

Alina and I just went to the grocery store, and she got to pick out ice cream.  Whatever she wanted.  The reason?  We were celebrating our (more or less) successful completion of the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.   A big achievement for Alina.  A big achievement for Mama.   The book's claim that "in 100 teaching days, your child will know how to read at a solid second-grade level" turned out to be exactly as it sounded: too good to be true.  It took us a bit more than 100 teaching days.  There were days where our patience and concentration would not allow us to do a whole lesson.  A certain number of lessons turned into 2-day affairs.  There were also a couple of times that I felt she was not yet ready to tackle any new sound combinations, so we had to get a bit of creative review.  But, the book is pretty well-thought-out, the progression logical.  We've got a bit more review to do, but I'm amazed to see her read words like tiger, something, into, mother...   I'm a proud mama.   And now we get to tackle French.

What if?

What if we flew with only our carry-on, hit the dollar Good Will our first morning there, bought us all 2 outfits apiece that we would re-deposit at the Good Will upon leaving and flew back with only our carry-on?   (You think I'm joking, don't you?)

Monkeys

Alina at dinner:   "Eleven little monkeys jumping on the doctor, One fell off and broke his collar. Mama said, "Doctor, are you OK?" And the doctor went away."   I thought that was pretty creative.  Especially since she apparently just made it up as she went.

Out and about

And Sybille during this time?

Groceries, anyone?

Went to the grocery store yesterday.  They have special buggies with baby seats on them.  I got one and was strapping Sybille in.  Tassia started laughing, and said (or at least, I thought I understood)   Tassia: (laughing) By Sybille. ME: OK, I can put you in the cart with Sybille. Tassia: (laughing again, and this time, I understood why) Buy une Sybille!   Yes, but for how much?

Alina's list

Black Bart's cave the zoo the Butterfly Pavilion Camping the zoo Fishing Ocean Journey (do they still call it that?) The scary basement McDonald's Did I mention the zoo?

Pedagogy

While I was making dinner tonight, I had the privilige of listening to Alina singing the notes to "Twinkle, Twinkle" as she has learned them for Thomas so he could play them on his flute.  Too cute!