Today we started our reading/writing lessons in Sicily. It wasn’t as frustrating as I expected but it wasn’t easy either. I’m working really hard not to lose my patience, have too high expectations, or rush through it. I have to actively stop my knee from shaking i’m strung so tight. You have to have the patience of a turtle to do this. She did a great job.
1. first, we played the sticker game: she choose 25 or 30 stickers and lays them down on paper, then we roll the dice, read a word, and move through the board. whoever gets to the end first wins. Ella won.
2. then she practiced writing – this is the hardest thing for her. I said a 3 letter word, she found the letters from a bunch of choices on the table and then had to write them (lower case) in boxes on paper. she wants to use all capital letters. but she was a trooper and re-wrote ’sad’ again in lower case at my request.
3. then i flashed several letter cards and she had to say what the letter was, how it sounds, and what word goes with it. she wasn’t too into this so we stopped quickly.
4. next I asked her what makes the sound of r, s and a and she then traced the letter and then made rainbow colored traces of each one.
5. for a bonus activity I asked her to identify the numbers on a dice 1 – 6. she did this pretty fast. i need one that goes to 10.
For the first real session it was a good one I think. We didn’t get upset with each other and she moved through everything successfully. We were alone, Gaia was with Papa at the pool and we had the AC running. The bait was that she could choose an activity or project afterward. She wants to color beach sand with food coloring. I can do that. If we can keep this up I think we’ll make real progress. I love her so much.
Distractions/Tangents:
