Reading Practice

I made a playlist of flash card videos that we use with Lychee for reading practice - so I figured I'd post it here in case anyone else wants to do some practice with little ones.

It's for children learning sight words or 'whole word' reading methods, NOT phonics.

Enjoy :-)

Learning Self-Regulation

I've heard over and over of parents who allow their toddlers to self regulate with food, claiming that if we leave them to it and don't interfere with 'on demand' feeding that children will learn to recognize their own hunger cues and equally know when they have had enough.

I like the principle - but I don't know anyone who has made it past about three years old.

photo credit

The reality is that society dictates we should eat at certain times, and it's kind of awkward if you refuse lunch whilst everyone is seated at the table and 20 minutes later you are hungry but mum has put everything away. So you either end up telling your kid when to eat - or feeding them junk because real food takes time and preparation.

Still, like I said, I like the principle.

It's something Cosmo's doctor told me about when he was very young and I was getting frustrated about him just wanting to watch the same DVD on loop, or when he just wanted to read the same book (or sometimes even the same page!) again and again. He said he's trying to puzzle something out. I assume that because he can read the words, he's got all the information, but particularly for children who learn to read early, being able to understand what they are reading may take more time.

He asked me to indulge him.
Read the same page 50 times if necessary, move on when he is ready.

Gosh, that took a lot of restraint from me, but it worked! He would watch the 20 minute DVD on loop (brilliant baby by the way if anyone is interested) but then he'd know everything on it and never choose to watch the same one again (at least not for a long time, and when revisiting an old DVD it was for comfort, watched once and then relegated to the 'I've seen that' pile).

We've been up against this battle again recently, only this time it's grated on me even more because his current obsession is Minecraft - and I am not a gamer.

Everything in me wanted to limit him to 20 minutes a day - or some other such rule - but having been through plenty of other past obsessions I let it play out properly.

My mum bought him the game for Christmas and for a couple of weeks I was convinced it was all he would do with all of his free time - and then we hit our breakthrough. He just turned around and said 'I think I'd like to take a break from minecraft for a little while'. He started playing legos with his sister again (boy, has she missed him!) and at the end of the day, it's only really been a two and a half week obsession.

He still enjoys playing minecraft, but he's also enjoying other things too and he doesn't play it for hours at a time.

So, here are my top tips for surviving obsession phases:

1) Try not to worry about making everything meaningful. I like to relax and read a magazine sometimes, or watch a movie. Not everything I do has value other than relaxation and not everything your child does needs to either.

2) Respect what they value. I don't love minecraft. I don't think it's awesome. But my son does and I wouldn't like it if he told me I couldn't look at pinterest because he doesn't think it's cool. Live and let live.

3) Find ways to work it into other things they might enjoy. Cosmo is currently working on a book of tips for his Dad so that he can learn how to play too. It's still Cosmo's favourite topic, but thankfully it's away from the computer screen!

Top tip for Minecraft... but also life in general...

4) If you really need to limit their time on something (eg. I don't want him sat at a PC all day) rather than saying no to it, find something else that will take up some of that time. If Cosmo wants to spend all his free time on the computer, but I don't want him to spend more than an hour, I need to find tasks that will take up all but an hour of his day, then he can play as long as he wants without a conflict. If you tell them they can't do something (or they can only do it for a limited time) it becomes the craved for 'forbidden thing'. I'd rather say 'of course you can play - right after we get back from the park and have picked up the groceries'.
We also have a rule where nobody has free time until they have completed their curriculum based activities for the day.

If you have anymore strategies, let me know. It might sound like I have it all sorted, but I really don't. It pains me to wait out an obsession, but it's totally worth it in the end. The result is a happier, less frustrated child, who learns how to self regulate their own time.

Gracies XL

Cosmo has been enjoying playing with some video editing software and has come up with a fun trailer for a movie about our family becoming superheroes. He chose all the videos and photos for the storyboard template himself, and all the clips where he is in a read cape and Lychee has chocolate on her face were written and directed by him :0)

He also did the typing for the inserts. Unfortunately the iPad keeps inserting apostrophes into things (like Gracie's when he types Gracies) and he will not allow me to correct them, so you'll have to excuse the grammar.

The 'XL' thing is a bit of a joke in our family as Cosmo and his dad like to wrestle, and they add 'XL' to their names to give themselves wrestling identities. Without further ado, I give you 'Gracies XL - the trailer'.

A Space Party!

Cosmo loves to prepare for guests, much more than he enjoys having them. Take thanksgiving for example - if you spoke to him anytime from august to November you would have assumed it was his favourite time of year. He was desperate to help make a pumpkin pie and decorate the house, but when our guests arrived he spent most of the dinner in his room by himself asking to be left alone.



So when he wanted a birthday party, you can understand me having concerns. Having spent the weeks running up to his dinosaur party excited and preparing, he spent the hours before in tears because he was scared. It was all fun in the end though.



So this year he wanted a 'Space Party'. Despite spending much of the morning balancing between tears and giggling manically he managed to stay downstairs for the entire party. There were some tears and I was sad that he refused to be part of a group photo at the end, but overall I'm glad we did it.



As with the dinosaur party, Cosmo was involved in all of the preparation, from making the pinata's and wall decorations, to baking his own birthday cake. We learnt loads during the process and spent hours on youtube watching astronauts in zero gravity training and space shuttle launches. He even made a playlist that he wanted to have on in the background of the party.



If you want to see a video of the party it's here:

Bible Islands

We have just bought a member ship for 'Bible Islands' and it is fantastic.



Cosmo had been playing far too much jumpstart for my liking, and though I wanted to encourage his computer skills and fine motor (dramatic improvement since he started using a mouse), I wasn't always keen on the content. To their credit, jumpstart have a little note saying which areas are designed for each age group, but the problem was that there was nothing to stop a curious three year old clicking on an area designed for 11 -14 years old. To be honest, he also found the 3-5 year old content a little too easy and dull.

The constant ' to access this feature, ask your parents if you can become a member' was also really starting to upset him, to the point that when someone in the queue at the library asked about becoming a member he got really upset.

We talked a LOT about getting him a membership, but we really felt that some of the content was just unsuitable. We let it slide for a month because we thought it might just be halloween stuff, and by thanksgiving they would be done with it, but that hasn't been the case. The reality is that a lot of the game areas are based on enchantments, witchcraft and ghosts. It's are real shame because the educational content is fantastic.

That's when we rediscovered Bible Islands. You get a 7 day free membership to try it out, but even before that was up we knew we were going to buy it for him. He absolutely loves it, the games are simpler, he's drip fed scripture, and he's actually learning hebrew.

Yes, you heard that right. My 3 year old is learning hebrew.

More annoyingly, he's picking it up faster than I did.

Pushing my jealousy aside, I can see that it would be great to have him learn as we will be able to encourage and help each other with it. I'm shocked at how quickly he is picking up the alephbet, but I guess to a child who has just learnt all the alphabet, number and mat symbols, throwing in another set is no big deal. He learns through games like 'pairs' and earns reward coins. The coins can be used to go to the cinema (a new Max Lucado Hermie & Friends Cartoon every day), buy and trade cards for albums which tell bible stories, and much more.

There's logic puzzles and quizzes, a museum, an art gallery (where you can create works of art and showcase them, as well as looking at other peoples), geography and biology... and we've only just begun.

I think it's going to be worth every penny.



If you want to know more (please note, I am not affiliated or receiving any benefit for plugging this) here is a video I found on youtube.