Prep For The Big K

I know it's only April, but I'm a big believer in being proactive when it comes to my kids' education.

Big sister A is happy and thriving in French Immersion, and Lil' J is signed up to start in September. In an effort to get him prepped and keep up with the English side of things at home, I'm creating simple puzzles and exercises for him to do.

These days there are so many wonderful published resources out there (work books - we have a whole shelf full :) and web sites galore, but once in awhile there's a gap that a parent can fill with a home made tool.

Word searches are a big hit with Alyssa, but for J, I can't find any that are simple enough. Any easy solution is to simply make my own.

Below is the first one I created (in jpeg format, so if you like it you can "right click save as" to your computer). My goal with this one was to have a small number of simple words, all left to right, horizontally, like they would be if they were read in a book. I added the "name" line at the top because J likes to write his name. We'll work at this level until he's comfortable finding them all, and then we'll move on to diagonal and vertical words...



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How Do You Answer That?

Here are three that stumped me, as asked by my daughter. There are some things that a six year old just doesn't need to know!!

How would you have answered?

"Mommy are (army) tanks real? What do they do?"

"Mommy, I understand why bums are private 'cause poop is yucky, but why are boobs private?"

"But Mommy, how does the sperm get to the egg to make the baby?"

For the tanks question I clumsily stammered some inappropriate response about shooting something or other and then quickly changed the subject, and for the boobs and babies question I told her she wasn't old enough to know. What would you have said?
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Bangs!!

When our little girl, a.k.a. The Hair Diva, announced that she wanted bangs "like everyone else in the family", DH and I were skeptical but agreed that at age 6 she could certainly decide something like that for herself. I made an appointment, and we chopped about 4 inches off the back (it was down past her waist, and yes it's been cut before! Hence the nickname), and cut bangs.

She has a beautiful forehead (no Mommy bias there ;) and looked exquisite without bangs, so I held my breath as the hairdressers scissors did their stuff.

OH MY. I thought she was cute before, but now, stand back, world!! Bangs really work for her. Even DH had to admit that it was a great idea.

(Sorry, no pictures... you'll just have to take my word for it ;) I wished now that I had taken a pic of the hair clippings pile on the floor, but I didn't think of it at the time. Such is life. Next time.

Next comes the bang trims. I almost put this post in my Saving Money blog, because my mind was engaged in the conflict between $$$ and vanity... Hmmm, longer bangs look cuter, but have to be trimmed more often. Shorter bangs are harder to pull off (although some lil' girls look adorable in them) but are lest costly to maintain.

We went with long. They come down juuuust past her eyebrows. AND ohhhh... her hazel eyes just JUMP right out. SO CUTE. (Btw, she has auburn hair, and the prettiest little nose, covered with a sprinkle of freckles :) No bias.

We got home, I showed her my scrabbooking scissors (very very very sharp), and explained to her the concept of Bang Trims by Mommy, while she leans over the bathroom sink.

Hmmm. We'll see. I'll let you know how that goes!
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Arrrgh.

Why do I watch these shows about obese children? Why? I know what my reaction will be before the show even starts.

In this case it's the Oprah episode featuring the "Half Ton Teen" Billy and his Mom, who enabled his obesity by over spoiling him with unhealthy food. Now I understand that she lost her first son at a very young age, but wouldn't that make a mom more concerned about the health of her next son?

What really spiked my blood pressure is when she said (I paraphrase, but you get the idea):

"As a mom, you just give it to them when they ask. You just love them, so that's what you do."

I don't know about you, but to me part of loving your child is being able to say NO! This seems painfully obvious, and yet we see again and again kids who suffer because parents are unable to set boundaries.

I am not perfect, believe me. But when (for example) I was making my daughter her whole grain toast this morning at breakfast and she asked for white bread, I said:

"No! Of course not. White bread is not good for you."

She has learned from experience (and many many tireless attempts to argue with me) that I won't change my mind, so she just shrugged and walked away, and sure enough, ate the whole grains.

Rocket science? Hardly. Backbone? There ya go.
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Introducing A Four-Year-Old To French Immersion

My daughter is thriving in Grade 1 French Immersion, so it's only fair, I think, to give her brother the same opportunity. I recently purchased a board book, "Mon Petit Livre Bilingue" with this in mind. Basically it's one of those little kid books with pictures of common items and their names, only this book has the names in English and French.(Hey! Helpful for me, too ;)

The first time I read it, his reaction was, um, not exactly what I was looking for:

"Mama why are you weading da Fwench? Stop weading da Fwench!"

Oh great. He's adverse to it already. Pffft. (sigh)

Ah, but Maternal creativity prevailed, as it usually does (Go Moms!). Every time I encountered a word that was spelled the same in both languages (like "table"), I'd say:

"HEY!!! That's an ENGLISH word!!! Wassup wid dat!!! Gee wizakers!!!!"

...at which point he would dissolve into massive giggles and beg me to read more. (Ah ha ;)

Here's a list of some of the words we laughed over:

six
orange
triangle
rectangle
short(s)
tuque
radio
table
sofa
sandwich
pizza
xylophone
ambulance
elephant
lion

By the end of the book, he was near hysterics, and I had him convinced that they're almost the same language ;) He'll learn the differences later, obviously, but at the moment he thinks French is fun.

Good enough for now!

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