I go through all of Xanthe's lesson materials with her every day, but she loves to play the piano by herself, too, so I give her a checklist. I don't know what it is with checklists, but kids can't get enough of them! We draw pictures to represent each song. The staircase is her scale, the boat is Lightly Row, etc. 20 minutes of entertainment. Magic!
Another magical tool is the whiteboard Xanthe got for Christmas. She gets to practice writing her middle C's and treble G's and words from the book she's working on. Yesterday, we were reading out of one of the I Am Sam books. The text is highly repetitive, since there are only about 4 words involved. "I am Sam. See me." That's about it. Xanthe said, "Oh! My GOSH! Why does it keep saying that?!" Maybe she's ready for some new words? Except that she can read the word Sam a dozen times, then she turns the page and there's the word Sam again, and she has no idea what it says. So funny! The same thing happens at piano. Xanthe and the boy whose lesson is after her work on theory for a few minutes together. The teacher draws a middle C and says, "What note is this?" "Middle C!" Then she draws another middle C and says, "What note is THIS?" Blank stares. I love this age!
As much as I complain about how short kindergarten is, I secretly love it. I love having one-on-one time with Xanthe, and I love getting all of her "larnin" done while the other kids are at school. It takes some pressure off that 3:00 to 6:00 block of time after school when so much has to be accomplished. Next year, all of my Xanthe time will be pushed together with everyone else's time. Fortunately, I'll still have Ptolemy to ask me endless questions and delight me with his funny sayings. He's already practicing his questioning. About a thousand times a day he asks, "Whe Ari? Whe Ari?" She's at school, Ptolemy. Here's a white board marker. Have fun!
5 comments:
Esmae does the same thing reading, didn't realize how much patience is involved in teaching! Esmae will practically say the word by sounding out each letter then she looks at me & says what'd I say?
I love Xanthe! She is darling! But, I don't know how anyone learns to read with "I AM Sam". It's a miracle because those books are soooooo boring. I used to tell c all the time, "more interesting books are coming.. I promise!"
Great. I hope my kid won't be tagged as the boring repetitive one just because his name is Sam.
her wrists are down? Are you kidding? Love little X.
I think the white board was a brilliant gift!
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