Finished ETC 1 1/2 and other random stuff

Yesterday was our normal day to volunteer at the library. While we were there I picked up 3 books from the Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat Library. One was Wish for a Fish: All About Sea Creatures, another On Beyond Bugs: All About Insects, and the third was There's No Place Like Space: All About Our Solar System. I also picked up a few random early readers, including The Horse in Harry's Room by Syd Hoff. Lacking lots of space on the bookshelf (or on the top of the dresser, or darn near anywhere else - we're already overflowing with books :) ), I tossed them onto Sayer's bed because she always asks for a book or two to read to herself at bedtime. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon she climbed up there for something. Duncan followed her up a bit later. When I peeked in to see what was going on after a little while I found them hovering over the Syd Hoff book. Sayer finished it and then picked up the book on bugs. She didn't have a chance to finish it as we had to get ready for karate, but it just made me smile to see them 'playing' in her bed and to learn that the 'playing' they were enjoying so much was reading. Sayer almost treats a new book to read like candy. :)

Last night I prompted her to pick up her phonics book as there were only a few pages left to do. She went out to the table and came back and said 'Can I do this one instead?' and showed me the 'Learn Along with Arthur' Math book 'Arthur Goes Shopping.' So she sat down and did 6 pages in that. She had to draw hands on analog clocks, count coins, match numbers and objects, and work out where to place items on a grid when given instructions like 'over 2, up 1. Then she asked if/when she could stop and go to bed :)

Today we had swim class again. The first class back since Sayer really seemed to 'get it' and figure out the whole floating thing and the breath-holding-face-in-the-water thing. She's asked me almost daily since that class when we were going back. Yesterday when I told her we were going to karate she said 'awwww, Mom! I want to go to swim class!' :)

So today was swim class, and she was back at it, dunking herself under the water and floating around. And, again, needing to be reminded to stay over the stairs while she floated along. Thursday is the last class for this session. I have little doubt that she'll get bumped to the next level, though I keep telling her she needs to stop holding her nose for that to happen.

After swim class we headed to gymnastics for Duncan. Yes, the classes are darn near back-to-back. And yes, he's often so tired during the last 15 minutes of gymnastics that he comes out to snuggle me rather than finish the class. Keep in mind that last semester there (all of 4 weeks ago) his class was only 45 minutes long, and it's now an hour, so that plays into this, too. But next week, with the start of the next swim session, we'll be moving it a little earlier so we have a longer break to re-charge and have a good snack before gym.

While Duncan was in class today (before he was too tired to continue), Sayer sat with me and we read another story out of a book of Egyptian myths. Then we read several pages from a lovely book called 'It's Disgusting! And We Ate It!' :)

When we ran out this afternoon to pick up our veggies from the CSA drop off, Sayer brought a book called On the Moon. She read it in the car. Needed help with 'astronauts' and 'silently' (kept pronouncing it with a short /i/ sound). Otherwise, she did perfectly.

Then this evening she finished the last 5 pages in ETC 1 1/2 and took the test at the end. The only mistake she made was in the first sentence she transcribed. The sentence reads 'The mat has a rip.' She spelled 'has' with a z. Oops. And, okay, there were a few errors with not capitalizing at the right spots. But she put periods at the end of her sentences :) Tomorrow we'll start book 2.