Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Milestones


When Jack and Riley were younger I felt they hit milestones quite often. 
I'm sure it's just an age thing- they change so quickly the 1st few years of life and then settle down into who they're becoming now. 

There are still milestones, just not as often.  
Yesterday - they both hit a fun milestone.
Each of them super proud of themselves and honestly - seeing my kids proud of themselves makes me smile. 

Riley has really taken off with her reading the last month or so. 
She was reading before starting kindergarten but nothing like she is now. 
And she WANTS to read.  Every night.
She usually has the stamina to read aloud to me for about 10 minutes- max. 
If it's a longer book she'll read some of it and then pass it along to me to finish. 

Not last night. 
The book below is 64 pages. Granted it's 64 pages of fairly easy reading, but it's a LONG book.
She read every last page by herself. 
When she finished, after 20 or so minutes (she had to stop a few times and ask me questions like her teacher does), she had a huge grin on her face.  

She said to me, "MOM- I read the whole thing!"  

Yes you did Riley- 
I love listening to her read.  
Listening to her voice change as she reads characters talking is adorable. 
I'm excited to see her grow some more. 



And Jack.
They've been working on cursive handwriting lately in class.
I do think they need to know how to read/write in cursive but I am so thankful we don't waste much time on 'handwriting.'  
Handwriting has nothing to do with intelligence or how well you can write a narrative or memoir or persuasive piece.  It's busy work, at it's best. 
I think back to how much time my own teachers spent on 'handwriting' and God knows it was such a waste of time.  A colossal waste of time. 

But- they do need to know how to read cursive and write in it - if they choose. 

The last few days he's been practicing a word here or there but he had some time to kill this week and wrote a quick story about going to the movies.  
In cursive.
He took his time, especially with the capital letters, and when he finished (or just got tired of writing) he showed me. 
He was super proud of himself. 
I kept thinking he could have written two pages in print for the time it took to write a 1/2 page in cursive. 
He didn't care though. 

Guarantee he'll be back to printing any time. 
Just fine w/ me. 


Until next time...

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