Llama Reads

Man, I've been sitting on this post forever. At first I thought we weren't really far enough along to warrant a full post, then I had a bunch of other things I wanted to post about, but it had been so long since my last post, and I wanted my next post to be all about the Llama, and then it just became a matter of overcoming inertia and getting the darned thing written so the blog will stop staring at me so accusingly.

SO...

The Llama is reading.

OMG

He's not even 3 1/2 yet, I'm not sure if I’m ready for this!

Here is how our reading journey has progressed:

We started watching the They Might be Giants DVD Here Come the ABCs when The Llama was a little over 1 1/2. he didn't really get it, but we loved the music. Then a short while later we got Signing Time Volume 5: ABC Signs. I had already put a couple of posters behind the couch with the alphabet and ASL signs.

Time went on and The Llama began to memorize the alphabet. By 2 1/2 he had it pretty well down. He seemed to know that there was more to it than that, but I wasn't really sure if he was ready. To see, we started introducing letter sounds. I think the analogy we used for him was "you know how different animals make different sounds? Well different letters make different sounds too!"

Then we started poking around Starfall. The alphabet section really helped him solidify the letter sounds, and he loved the little videos and interactions. (He isn't allowed to touch or use the computers, but he could very easily tell me what needed to be clicked and where to put things.)

Eventually, right around the beginning of winter, he started getting bored with just the alphabet but still wanted more, so I began poking around the learn to read section. He did really well at the little preparatory games and could easily identify a letter by its sound in the beginning of a word, so we stated reading “Zac the Rat.” He could sound out the letters perfectly but at just barely 3 years old he just wasn't really getting how to string the sounds together to make words.

We continued to poke around the beginning books, but didn't really get very far because while Starfall would read the words for him, he wasn't making the leap to sounding them out for himself. He just did not grok the whole "smoosh the sounds together to make a word" thing no matter how much we modeled it for him. He would just keep saying the sounds with long pauses in between (or worse, “and” – like "c and a and t") and staring at us blankly if we asked him what word that makes, or to say them closer together, or faster, or to smoosh the sounds. (If we modeled sounding it out/smooshing the sounds, he'd say the word, but couldn't seem to do it himself.) He was starting to memorize the stories, and in some cases could recognize words outside of the Starfall books. But he had also started trying to guess what a word was if it looked similar to one he knew, almost always getting it wrong, and I didn't want him to get into that bad habit. So I decided to take a break from Starfall for a bit. I went to the homeschooling community for advice. They all agreed with me that he was just too young to get it yet, but gave me a lot of suggestions of where to go and what to do in the meantime.

A little while ago, I began poking around Progressive Phonics and downloaded their beginner phonics PDFs. I figured I would give them a try and see how The Llama did with them, they seemed simple enough, and I liked the co-reading aspect as well as the way they grouped words with the same ending to help with recognition.

So now we've been working on the "a" book on and off for a few months, and just started the "e" book this week, and I think it really is helping, The Llama is starting to string the sounds together without prompting, and isn't guessing as much. Awesome! I think we are well and truly on our way to reading! At Christmas time we bought him the first set of BOB books and we may pull those out soon. Up until now it's all been words and pictures on the computer and I think it will really cement reading in his mind when we transition to actual paper books, and it will be awesome that he will be able to read a whole book all by himself! It's a little scary to think of my little baby growing up so quickly, but I’m just so incredibly proud of him and all the hard work he is putting into this. Even when I’m a bit reluctant or don't feel like 'doing reading' he will still pester me until we do it. I love my little reader!

NY Sheep and Wool 2012

Well, it's been almost a month since we were there, so I guess I should get around to posting about the NY Sheep and Wool festival, eh?

The drive down was gorgeous as usual, and uneventful after I once again over prepared. The Llama was an awesome passenger and sang along with the songs and looked at the sights. We didn't have the spare cash to buy anything fiber-y but we still had a great time wandering through the animal barns and checking out all the sheep, llamas, alpacas and goats.

But the real fun began when we got to the petting zoo. For the last several months the Llama has been obsessed with Lemurs and has seen tons of videos with the Llama Papa on You Tube, so we were all a bit excited to see them. But first there was a full grown turtle and it's size matched bunny friend:

And then the petting goats:

And a really neat kangaroo:

(And a baby alligator, which The Llama also really liked, but we couldn't get a good photo of.)

And finally, the Lemurs!

(We were quite fond of the one sunning itself.)

After a brief break to play in the leaves and have lunch, The Llama insisted that we make the rounds through the barns and then we headed home.

All in all we had a great day, and I'm so glad that we live so near by and can spend the day having so much fun with all the animals. The Lama seemed interested by the few spinners we passed along the way, and I think as he grows he will become more and more interested in the fiber side of things as well, which makes me all sorts of giddy.

As Summer Comes to an End

The summer draws to a close, The Llama Pappa is preparing to start a new job, and the Llama and I are hunkering down to enjoy our days together. I have batches of play dough made, and all the ingredients for homemade paints in our kitchen, and I've pulled Teaching Montessori in the Home: Pre-School Years from the bookshelf to read and gather supplies.

We have had a wonderful time this summer. Despite the heat we have managed to get out for hikes and walks regularly, often in the mornings right after breakfast, before the heat arrived. We have mostly stuck close to home, but did make it farther afield occasionally.

The Llama has had a blast walking and hiking. He is really great at staying on the trail, loves inspecting flowers and bugs, and is particularly fond of poking at an especially scummy part of a nearby pond, delighting at the decaying leaves and disgusting smells he dredges up. We have seen countless wildflowers and many frogs and small fishes, and thankfully have been bitten by very few bugs.

I need to give a shout out to Abbi at Greening Sam and Avery who has given us the confidence that The Llama could handle running free on the nature trails, given advice on how to make our hikes smoother, and made it so that we all could get more out of our adventures. Without her blog we never would have thought to take the Llama out so young, and probably would have had a much less enriching summer. To anyone with small children, I highly suggest you read her post here.

In a few more years I hope that The Llama will be more copacetic about me stopping to draw in my nature journal, and I hope to someday make him one of his own so that he can stop and observe with me. I already have the Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock and Keeping a Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie on my Amazon wishlist to get ideas from.

Counting Sheep

The Lama has a favorite book called Can't Sleep Without Sheep by Susanna Leonard Hill about a little girl who can't get to sleep, so her mother suggest counting sheep, but it still takes a long time for her to fall asleep, and the sheep get tired and quit, then all sorts of hijinks ensue when they try to find replacements. Also about sheep, one of the episodes of Signing Time we have has a story, once again about counting sheep and the silly things a girl imagines would happen.

Add these two stories to the Llama's love of numbers and he has been insisting on 'counting sheep' with us lately, but he only has one little sheep Lego figure, so there wasn't much actual counting going on. I added a new poster to our wall, with the numbers 1-20 to extend his counting range. He loves the poster, but it just wasn’t sheep.

So I made some counting sheep for him. I took some sheep doodles I had made for another project, cleaned them up, and printed them out in card stock. Then I glued them to Popsicle sticks and now we have bunches of counting sheep!

I’ll hold up a random number of sheep, and he'll count them off. Or I'll ask him to hand me a number of sheep. He is loving them. And, as a bonus, they make great little puppets for farm/sheep imaginative play too!

If you would like to make your own counting sheep, you can download the PDF here

posters

As I said earlier, the Llama has been really interested in the alphabet lately, and also is starting to recognize his colors. In an effort to keep up his interest I made up a handful of posters to put up behind the couch. The Llama will stand on the couch and look at the posters and point to letters, colors, or shapes, and we will tell him what he is pointing at. He will do this for up to 10-15 minutes at a time! Occasionally he will point to something and do the sign for it even before we have a chance to say what it is (or if we don't notice right away that he is pointing).

I did two alphabets because we want to teach The Llama ASL and the finger spelling alphabet, and we know he recognizes pictures and drawings. We still sign the letters to him when he points at the regular alphabet letters too, but the finger spelling one is there for when he just wants to look.

Just this morning The Llama Papa was pointing at colors and The Llama was doing the signs for them without being prompted. It was so cute!

The shapes poster is our most recent addition, and the Llama is fascinated by it and already recognizes and can sign star; the other shapes are a little more difficult because the way to sign most shapes in ASL is to make that shape, so it's a little harder for us to sign them and have him connect them with names, but he LOVES having us name the shapes for him. I think he's excited to have another thing to learn. His little brain just keeps sucking up all the info that it can.

I also like these posters because it gives up a little break from all the running around and craziness that he usually keeps up all day.