Archives for November 2005

Every letter makes a sound, the A says ahhh…

For the last couple months I’ve been working on letter sounds with Katherine. The conversation would go like this…

Christine: “Katherine, what sound does Aaaallison start with?”

Dead Silence

Christine: “It starts with ahhh…Aaaallison starts with ahhh..”

Dead Silence

I was starting to wonder whether Katherine had entered her “sensitive period” for phonemic awareness or not. I was also wondering how long I’d have to have one way conversations…which is pretty unusual with Katherine. Thankfully, we borrowed a great Leapfrog DVD from Audrey two weeks ago which has worked wonders in a very short period of time.

What’s up with the Letter Factory DVD? Well, it uses Leap, Lily, Tad and a Dr. Quigley to sing the entire alphabet and the letter’s sounds. The great news is that Katherine has learned many sounds of the alphabet. If I ask her what sound a letter makes, she can make the correct sound about half the time. When we ask her what sound a word starts with, she can also nail it half the time. The bad news is that this song is stuck in my head and it probably will be for the next few months!

Katherine is also very excited to identify her letters. She can identify half of her letters now…mostly those associated with our names like A for Allison, B for Bisco, D for Daddy, K for Katherine, L for Lambey, M for Mommy, P for Patty, Q for ??, S for Steve, W (upside down M!), X for ?? and Y for who knows!

Yesterday we hit a big milestone as well. Katherine wrote her first letters! She was busy scribbling with her big pencils on some paper. She turned to me and said “Mama, I wrote an A!” I looked casually over and there was an A!! I came home yesterday afternoon to find another piece of paper on the table with several As, an M (or W) and X on it! Needless to say, Steve, Patty and I were very proud of Katherine and she just beamed at us.

Finally eating cereal!

Allison has been working hard to get her hands on some food for a while now. Whenever we hold her at the table, she’ll pull the plate towards her and reach for food. Now she can eat as well…we started rice cereal last Monday and then switched to oatmeal on Friday. Katherine was probably the most excited of any of us. She tried to help by shaking the formula for the cereal, getting the bib and then trying to convince me to let her feed Allison!

Allison has eaten a good meal maybe three or four times over the last week. She’s very strong willed about food and milk, only eating when she is super hungry. This perhaps helps to explain why she is still only 5-10% in weight (13 lbs 0.5 oz) and 50% or 25.5″ in height at her 6 month checkup. Sigh.

Katherine’s birthday
Katherine celebrated her birthday three times last week! The first time was actually on her birthday after Steve and I got home from PuzzleHunt. The second time was at Patty’s sister’s house. The third time was with her friends this past Saturday at an arts and crafts studio in Bellevue.

My mom was a huge help over PuzzleHunt weekend, watching the kids on Sunday until dinner time. Yes….we were solving puzzles for two straight days and didn’t even finish by 5PM when Steve and I had to leave! Anyway, that aside, we got home to find Katherine running around and fired up to open her twelve gifts. She had been planted by the dining room table all day, counting her presents and telling my mom about the chocolate ice cream cake in the freezer. It took her about 10 minutes to rip thru the gifts and then she spent the next hour or so examining games and puzzles from family.

Saturday’s official party was more riotous, with kids running around making dragon masks, butterfly wings, fuse bead artwork and tiled flower pots. Katherine came home with artwork, with lots of help from mom. She also got lots of cool gifts (some to remain in the toy closet for a couple weeks) and had a great time.

Another preschool cold

We’re on our fourth preschool cold this year. Katherine brought it home and promptly gave it to her sister. For the last week, we’ve had runny noses, interrupted sleep (primarily Allison) and some general crankiness. Steve and I are fighting it…fingers crossed we don’t get the full blown cold. As a result of all this interrupted sleep, Allison has been getting up regularly during the night. Steve and I were just exhausted and decided to try formula at night. Allison got up only once last night at midnight to drink formula before waking up at 6AM. We’ll have to try this again. Maybe Allison will decide that formula isn’t worth waking up for and sleep through the night. If that doesn’t work, then it’s time to Ferberize!

Preschool Progress

As you can see, we had a wonderful Harvest Fest right before Halloween this year. I co-chaired the event…learning all about how to manage a preschool project! Anyway, Steve’s parents were able to attend and it was a very special event. Katherine was at first standing in the back of her class until Miss Julie pulled her forward to the stairs. Katherine was a trooper and sang “The Cat came back” and “Earth my body” while mimicking the hand motions of her classmates. It was way too cute.

Last Thursday we had our first student-led parent teacher conference with Miss Tammy. Katherine showed us almost 10 different works from around the classroom in an hour. First she led off with a water project that involved many steps (a) fill the pitcher (b) pour water into bowl (c) use dropper to put soap in bowl (d) use hand mixer to make suds (e) use sponge to wipe mixer (f) pour water into sink. She also showed us how she washes her face in class – which was hysterical – and how she sorts, matches various objects with different works. She’s learning different shapes by feel and stacking the pink cubes in order. She’s learning the basics of counting through 1:1 correspondence. Steve and I had a blast watching Katherine’s progress which Miss Tammy said was phenomenal. (Yes, we’re very proud parents!!) I’ll have to make a point of dropping by the classroom and watching thru the 1 way mirror more often.