A breakthrough

We haven't done any school today (visitors and a trip out with her Dad have taken up the day), but we did do some yesterday.

Nugget used the practical life activities a few times -- not nearly as much as the first day they were out, but enough that I'll keep them out for a few more days. I did swap out the nearly untouched pasta stringing with puzzle-like sequence cards. The pumpkin life cycle and fruit matching got another spin, as well.

She showed a lot of interest in doing worksheets, but got more reluctant when we sat down. I offered to stop and do something else, but she wanted to continue -- she just wanted me to do them. I did a bit, then used some mom tricks to get her back into them (counting the flower vases with four flowers is no fun, but giving smilie faces to the vases with four flowers is a blast!). She flat-out turned down the begins-with worksheets, which I can't blame her for -- she already knows beginning sounds. The newly-introduced dot-to-dot have been a hit, though.

I did a lot of thinking the night before about how to approach geography/culture with her. There's so many neat things to learn about other places and other kids, but she doesn't really have the experience to grasp that there are other locations, far away. After pondering, I realized that the first skill she needed was understanding maps. So after the worksheets, we worked together to draw a map of her school nook. She definitely came to understand the concept as we were working on it, and was pointing out the correct locations for the furniture by the end. Next week, we'll draw a map of the house, then of the neighborhood, and then work up to looking at maps of further locations.

Nugget had a neat breakthrough later that day. The day before, she'd been struggling with rhymes. The concept just wasn't clicking. And even when we did our worksheets in the morning, she didn't seem to understand. But when we were at lunch, she volunteered a rhyme. And when I posed other words, she was able to find rhymes for them! She pulled an interesting one -- I asked for a rhyme for "mud", and she suggested "sud". I said that yes, it did rhyme, and she asked what a sud was. :) I posited that it was a single bubble when you were getting cleaned up. I find it really interesting that she was able to make rhymes even with nonsense words.

I love knowing that she's growing and changing right in front of my eyes!