I have no new pictures. We didn't really get out and do anything fun this week, but I do have a few pieces of news to report.
First, our car was totaled, but I'm pretty okay with it because they're giving us $1200 over the blue book cost of the vehicle. So, when (or if) we decide to buy a new car, we won't have to take out a very big loan. We have to give back the beautiful rental car on Wednesday and then learn how to be a one car family. I'm a little worried about it because of 3 factors: 1) Devan works somewhere different every day and usually at least 45 minutes away from home 2) I have to go to school 3) Hannah exists. I think if just one of those factors were gone it would be really easy to only have one car. But we'll see. Devan and I can carpool to school most mornings, the problem will just be getting to my night classes while he's at work. So, we're just going to play it by ear and if he ends up having to miss more work to drive me around than a car payment would cost, then we'll buy another one. But I am excited to only deal with the maintenance of one car. It seemed like between the two we were constantly having to fix something. All in all, I think Devan's car accident has ended up being a positive thing for us.
Second, ever since she first used the potty about a week ago, Hannah has used it at least twice a day. She doesn't always tell someone when she needs to go, but if I put her on the potty every couple of hours she will go and I don't have to change diapers. Great-grandma Smith sent Hannah Christmas money to buy a book with and we got a book about a little girl named Hannah who learns to use the potty. So, we read the book and she uses her potty and it's like a miracle.
Third, Hannah's Great-grandma and -grandpa Jones sent her a baby reading system for Christmas. We've only been doing it for 6 days now, but so far Hannah really likes it. There are six DVDs and you watch each one twice a day for a month. They show a word and then they talk about the word and show someone doing the word (like "clap" for example.) Everyday I ask her if she wants to watch her movie and she runs over to the TV. Then we do flashcards with the words from the movie on it. After 6 days, today she was able to read "hi", "baby", "tiger", "clap", "cats", and "dog". I was so excited. Some people have criticized teaching children to read this way because they're only memorizing words and not sounding them out, but how often do adults sound out words when they read? We just look at a word and know what it means because we've learned it already. And if we do come across a word we don't recognize and try to sound it out, we very often get it wrong because the English language is so confusing. I know that she will eventually have to learn what sounds the specific letters make, but for now we're having a lot of fun with what we're doing.
Fourth, I think I'm almost through my morning sickness. I was able to cook dinner 3 nights this week, which is probably more than I've cooked in the last 6 weeks combined. I think that I'm at 11 weeks, and that was when I started feeling better with Hannah, but I don't feel big enough to be 11 weeks. Last time, I was in maternity pants at 12 weeks and I'm not even close to that yet. I have my first prenatal appointment next week, so maybe Beccy will be able to give me a better guess based on how big I am. Either way, I'm excited to not be feeling so crummy and I'm happy that it's happening just in time for school.
That's about all that's new and exciting with our lives. Maybe next week we'll actually leave the house, so we have more interesting stories.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Are you talking about the red car that got hit around Christmas? Also, what is the name of the reading program you are using? It sounds similar to one my cousin used and it was very successful. Hooray for potty!!!!!!!!!!
I agree with you on the memorization vs. sounding-out debate. Way back when I was in second grade, our school jumped on the sound-it-out bandwagon. Your grandma had already taught me to read flashcards when I was four, so I was always ahead of the curriculum in grade school. But I was forced to sound words out that I already knew, rather than just say them like a normal person.
In one breath they were cautioning us that many English words, like thought and city, do not sound the way they're spelled; and in the next breath they were pestering us to sound out each and every syllable.
The advantage to memorizing words over sounding them out is that YOU THEN KNOW HOW TO SPELL THEM.
I'm so glad you're doing this with her. You and I were both taught at home, before kindergarten, in roughly the same manner as you're teaching Hannah, and once we started school we were both ahead of the curve in reading and writing.
Afterthought:
Maybe Devan can give her a head start with math. I don't remember learning anything about math before I started school, and to this day it's still a struggle.
Post a Comment