I am sitting on a ton of lot of travel pictures but night after night I don't get them up. The times we are all home together I just want to be with the rest of them and we are doing something til it's time to drop it seems. I am in a hedgehog sorta mood – hibernating when I can. <g> So, instead of the cohesive note I will probably never compose….
In brief, it snowed. The first snow we have seen in England. Not much, but delightful nonetheless.
We made these muffins (pic'd below) and chicken soup this past weekend. I could live on soup right now.
A fair amount of my binder is being transferred into our Cozi app. The Luddite in me has gone kicking and screaming into the Brave New World admittedly. But since we are in it, I am determined that it will serve us and not vice vs. This is a great example. My brain was just overflowing lately with travel, schedules, chore lists, practices, shopping lists that were never completely complete. So now we have one app, we all can tap into it and I can watch their checklists tick off from any room in the house. Love.
I finished Kim De Blecourt's adoption story. Chock full of intrigue and corruption and suspense. Many of the good online reads of late ended up on the friendfeed to your right fwiw. Some good stuff!
A very good short read is here. Hat tip to Rebecca for sending and mulling it over with me. I think I am often too indulgent with myself. We hear all the time that venting is a good thing. I am not so sure. Never have been. Bitterness isn't any better in small portions. I am resolved to do better at catching the little foxes and remembering that success rarely lies in a few landmark battles but rather in staying faithful through many small skirmishes.
These everyday things – they are the big things.
And that is that. : )
Starry Sky Journal 
I see familiar book:) I have a question. My Nicola just turn 6 this December. We went trough half of the lesson in the 100 easy lessons book, then we started with Seton Phonics. He does great on the lessons and then when he has to read it is TORTURE!!! For both of us it seems. He looks at the word and sounds out the most crazy words!!!! Then I point at the letter by itself and he looks at it like he has never seen it before. If I write the letter on a page alone he can say the sound it makes…it is really crazy!!! He is my fourth one to learn to read and I have never had such hard time!!!!!!!!!!!!! Any suggestions?
That little face looking over the side of the tub made me laugh out loud. :o)
Some have gone through quickly and easily. Some have been painful getting through the c-AT-tuh…..CAT stage. And some you put the book away, bring it back out some weeks or months later and it just suddenly works. That last scenario is pretty common at our house and sooner or later it clicks. The trick is knowing when to just set it aside gently with no sign of frustration the child can discern. We did that on and off and what you see in the pictures is a fluent child explaining the sounds to her baby sister – who is at the choppy individual sounds stage.
My policy is to pronounce anything for them that doesn’t come easily. That way its not a test, just a sharing of information, and we stay on the same team. Can’t stress that enough. Some move into the blending of sounds easily. Others take a looooong time at the beginning of the book and continue to say choppy individual sounds for some time. If so, we do a lot of those preliminary say it slow, say it fast exercises. Mine like the Starfall site and School Zone software. Filling in with those awhile usually works. We don’t spend more than 5 minutes a day with this book fwiw – whether its a good session or not.
Nothing works as well as having a need to know of course. Lots and lots of reading aloud to them and modeling independent reading will give them that. Sooner or later the suspense becomes too much and they just HAVE to know how to do it themselves
Looking very peaceful.
Just read through your comment above.
” That way its not a test, just a sharing of information, and we stay on the same team.”
Wow. How often it works contrarily. Must remember.
Hi Kim, I’d be interested to know more about the adoption story you mentioned, but the link isn’t working.
I love the everyday posts! I especially love your gorgeous Polish pottery and beautiful dishes. Beauty in the everyday.