Audrey discovered something tonight that I’d prefer she not know about for at least a few more years – The Song of Solomon, in the Old Testament.
We were reading scriptures tonight as a family, and talking about a great miracle found in the New Testament. In the middle of this, Audrey erupted into excessive giggling. When I peeked up, I noticed Audrey’s Bible open to “THE SONG OF SOLOMON.”
“Oh great!” I thought to myself. I couldn’t remember anything in that book which would be appropriate for a six year-old to read.
Audrey couldn’t contain herself any longer, and she blurted out:
“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine” (Song of Solomon 1:2).
Phew. Kisses of the mouth are much better than other things she could have found in there.
This is an exciting time in my life. Audrey can now accompany Kate singing a primary song which they have been learning in primary. I love hearing music being made in our home.
My big sister and I spent many hours singing at the piano together. I am so excited that it is starting so early for Audrey and Kate.
Jeana has been teaching Kate to read using the method she also used with Audrey. The method consists of 100 lessons. Friday, Kate was on lesson 58. As of late, Jeana has been telling me that daily reading time lasts an hour and a half! The breakdown goes something like this:
5-10 minutes of learning new sounds
A painful, teeth-gnashing, tantrum-filled 60-90 minutes trying to read a page-long story
5-10 minutes of writing the new sounds in her writing pad
Back to lesson 58. Not a good day. The “story” portion was just too much and Jeana was having one of those “special” days as a parent when you feel like nothing is working. I talked to Jeana on my way home from work and she informed me that she needed to get out that night. Nope…not a good day.
Here is a snippet from an email Jeana sent to our sister-in-law documenting that day:
I am about to pull my hair out! I am going so crazy. We were on lesson 57 for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Today, we did the first part of lesson 58 in less than 5 minutes, then we got to the story. We spent 15 minutes on it before Kate had to go to the bathroom and then came out and laid on the floor. Well, we spent an hour on it after lunch and she got through the story once. We went to read it the next time and she read the title and that is all. I would try to get her started by sounding out words and she would look away from the book and say nonsense words like, “bog, mog, sog.” Finally I told her to go up to her room and shut her door because I needed a break.
Jeana did get out (probably good for all parties involved). While I was cleaning up dinner dishes, Kate was prancing around the kitchen singing stories out of a book (which she was making up of course).
“Kate,” said I, “come sing a story out of this book.” I cunningly retrieved her reading book from the cupboard (muhahaha), and led her into the piano room. “This is a long one, so we have to read it before we can sing it.”
Voila! She read it. Once I knew she could read the story, I started improvising a song on the piano and we sang our hearts out about a bug and a dog.
To surprise Jeana, we recorded Kate reading, “A Bug and a Dog.” The recording is a bit long, but then again, this is a long story for a four year-old who is learning to read.
Why the sudden end to the video? Well, Mr. Simon pulled the plug on the camera right as Kate was about to exclaim the rewards of doing her reading lessons.
‘Tis the season for a science project, and this season marks Audrey’s rookie project.
Audrey brought home a packet from school listing out all the rules and regulations involved in conducting an appropriate project. I was appalled with how restrictive the rules are. For example, no live specimens could be included – but if anything (non-picture) is part of the display, it must be completely contained in a plastic box which is sealed thoroughly. Thanks school for the opportunity to be creative…ugh.
I digress. The school did suggest a great web site for project ideas and the ideas were categorized by complexity (which was exceedingly helpful). We whittled down the options to 3 projects:
How do seeds get dispersed by the wind?
How do plants drink water?
How many seeds do different fruits produce?
Audrey selected option #2 (as did another girl in first grade), and got to work. Jeana thought it would be a great idea to video the little scientist in action. Here is the coverage of her experiment.
Audrey and Jeana are still finalizing the presentation of the display for the fair, but so far it is coming together nicely.
I’m a youngest child. Jeana is a youngest child. If there’s one thing we know about, it would be a keen understanding of hand me downs.
My oldest sister just sent us a couple packages. In one was a stash of books which Audrey and Kate went nuts over. I was working from home and could hear all the excitement so I went downstairs to check it out. When I got downstairs, I found Magic Treehouse books spread all over the floor of our family room, as well as a bunch of other books. Audrey was reading “Mig the Pig” to Kate and Audrey thought that was the funniest thing she had ever read by the sound of her laughing.
Included in the package was a “My First LeapPad” for Kate. Audrey had one (which too was a hand-me-down) when she was younger – and she loved it. Yesterday, Kate played on that thing for hours! What a marvelous invention.
In the other package, my sister (bless her) sent matching bedspreads which she had made for her daughters’ beds a long time ago. And by “made” I mean they look like you could have purchased them from Pottery Barn Kids. Actually, they’re better than that.
While the girls were occupied with the gold mine of books downstairs, Jeana stole away upstairs to prepare the girls’ bedroom with the new quilts. Since our girls inherited my drama, I assumed they’d give a good reaction when then saw their new bedding. I setup a camera so we could catch their reaction.
Thank you Michelle (and your family) for all the fun and excitement!
