Parenthood - 2015-05-28 Surprise

May 28, 2015

We are finding Elizabeth's reading level really hard to assess because it is so variable depending on the day and her mood. Some days she is easily reading well above grade level and others she spends about a minute sounding out easy three letter words that she has been reading for years now. As a result, she is quite shy about reading out loud so we figured an incentive to practice (confidence booster!) would not be a bad idea.

One of my homeschooling boards posted an idea to encourage reading and I thought it was brilliant - not only does it use stickers right when Elizabeth was feeling left out that Matthew was getting stickers to encourage potty training - but it promised a prize at the end and Elizabeth loves prizes! Ironic that the stickers for potty training didn't keep being motivating very long for Matthew, but Elizabeth kept reading in order to get hers! Ah well. We sneakily designed the board in such a way that we could work on our tens and units counting skills at the same time...

Anyway, she duly completed her reading chart just in time to play hooky from school with Maria and go to the Midway as her prize! Maria got to come too as her birthday present - we needed something that Auntie Yukiko didn't need to pack... Since it was a weekday, we had the entire place to ourselves! Unfortunately Matthew wasn't allowed to go on the bumper cars as he was too small to go by himself and I am too pregnant to accompany him. There were many, many tears. I consoled him with a train ride but he was quite desperate to drive the cars "soon". I think the staff felt sorry for him as they didn't charge for the train. Elizabeth and Maria of course went on four rides in a row. Elizabeth spent the entire time driving in circles. Maria spent most of her time slamming into the sides - back and forth and back and forth. There was much wild giggling. Let's just say neither of them are good drivers yet...

The most popular part of the afternoon was the Jungle gym / bouncy castle. I was a little worried I'd have to rescue Matthew from the tunnels but luckily the girls were big enough to help him over the tricky parts so there was minimal crawling required from me.

Elizabeth would like to start a new reading chart so she can go back...