Learning The Letter "I"

Knowing that Bella enjoys school has helped keep me motivated to prepare each week and make sure we spend time each day doing school together.

 

This past week, we worked on the letter I. Bella knows all of her letters, but this has been a process of connecting the dots and teaching her that each letter makes a sound and letters make words when put together. Luckily, she picks up more than she lets on, because there are some days when I'm like, "Welp, she knows that the word 'inchworm' starts with the letter 'I', but that might be it."

 

Getting her to finish art projects or coloring has always been a struggle, but in the last two weeks, she has completely turned around! She wants to color or paint everything in "rainbow" colors, and she sits there, diligently finishing the entire picture. Not sure what happened, but I'm loving it!

 

Look! She painted! The entire letter! I know this sounds like no big deal, but when Steve and I were her Sunday School teachers last year, she was the only kid in her class who wouldn't color her lesson. It kind of geeked us out and frustrated us; not gonna lie.

 



Her letter search paper...I usually have to tell her that she missed one in each line, and she'll go back and find it. 

Each week uses a different letter and sound and then incorporates other skills like counting, tracing, and graphing into that letter or animal. For this activity, she had to count how many holes were on each leaf, and then match the numbered inchworm to that leaf. She counts really quickly (usually going so fast that she skips one), so I'm working on her slowing down and pointing to each thing that she's counting. I think this is helping.

This was her coloring sheet from church yesterday. I just had to include it because it's blowing my mind that she suddenly started coloring! And used more than one color! It's just one of those weird "parent" things that only I'm going to get excited about. :)

 

Okay, so this doesn't have anything to do with school either, but it made me chuckle. When we're at the store, Bella will always find toys or animals that she wants to get, and my response is, "Let's add it to our Christmas list." It's pretty much my way of side-stepping having to say 'no' all the time.

 

Well, Bella decided she wanted her Christmas list in writing, so the other day, she started telling me everything to write down. I love how much she likes animals! If she doesn't become a veterinarian or something like that, I'm pretty much going to consider her childhood a waste. Walking down the Barbie aisle at Target today, she told me, "I want this pony...but not the Barbie doll. Let's make sure we add this horse to my list. But Mom! Make sure not to write down the Barbie! Just the horse."

 

In my head, I'm thinking, "YES!"