Daily pic

My Mother was recently compaining, to anyone who would listen, how hard done she is because I never send her pictures of my daughter. She has a close friend whose DIL sends her a new pic of the grand kid everyday. And now my Mother doesn't understand why it is such a big deal to send her a daily picture too.

Sigh. Well, up until recently I was taking pictures with my camera with which I had to insert the data card into the computer and download new pics. We don't actually take that many pics of Phoenix, and it feels like a lot of effort to be downloading them every day just to send a pic to my Mother.

So my talented sister took a bunch of photos over our March break and she sends both of us one picture a day to ration them out. Thanks Sis!

Here is today's picture:

I will say that the nagging has worked. Now that I have an iPhone, it is much easier to email pics from my phone to share with my Mother. And there have been no complaints. She's able to keep up with the Jone's in terms of the Grandmother competitions. Who knew that the Mommy Wars wasn't the end of the competition?

April Photo Bomb

Just a few pics from our travels and activities lately. Happy Monday!

Sight words!

Now that Phoenix confidently knows her alphabet and numbers I really wanted to start teaching sight words. We have been doing a few sight words on her magnetic drawing board, but nothing too consistently.The only problem is that the favourite way to teach sight words in the DS community is through the use of flashcards. And it is a good method for kids who are willing. Individual word reading is a significant skill for kids with DS.

I introduced flash cards to Phoe about a year ago and it has been a huge failure. She hates them. She starts yelling "no,no,no" and pushes them away. Which is interesting since this kid LOVES learning. She just doesn't want to learn through the use of flash cards.

Ok. Regroup.

One of her favourite time to practise letters and numbers is bath time. We have foamy toys which are numbers and letters that stick to the side of the tub. She loves them, and loves identifying what each one is. I finally came up with the idea that I should look for foamy sight words - which I didn't find commercially, but found a variation on Pinterest that I could make myself. So off to the dollar store I went to find foamy cut outs and made my own sight words. It's been a huge hit! We've only been using them a few days, but already there are over 30 words that Phoenix knows by sight! I know she knows them because when I hold the word up for her she says it out loud. This is great not only for her pre-reading knowledge, but also for her continued progress in speech.

However, your child doesn't have to be speaking to teach them words. The other way to test their knowledge is to introduce a few words and then place 3-4 in from of the child and ask them to pick the word you are looking for. Easy peasy.

Last night, here are the words she could correctly identify the first time:

 

I'm excited for Phoenix who is embarking upon a lifelong journey of the love of words. But I am more excited for ME because I was able to work around her resistance to find an activity that would help her learn a really fundamental body of knowledge.