Letters

The day before Ella's last day of Kindergarten (and her last day at this school since we moved a couple weeks later), she asked if she could give something to her teachers.  I suggested she write or draw something for them since we'd already given presents to her main teachers the week before.  Over the course of the next few hours, she wrote all of these...with zero coaching, prodding, direction, wording help from Chris or me.  I cry every time I look at them.  She is such a sweet girl.

To an admin/helper in her classroom

To the principal

For the Assistant Principal

To the Cafeteria Ladies:

To her Art teacher

To her Music teacher

To her Gym Teacher

To the teacher who was in Ella's class everyday as the one-on-one help for Ella's good friend Dennis who is in a wheel chair

Love this girl.

Squeezing in some milestones...

Maybe in a rush to show off her skills before she turns 3 (in two days) Ella BLEW me away tonight. All within an hour or so she did three things I've never seen her do and didn't know she could do!

1. She pulled out my Bible and said to a group of friends we were with "Want to know what this says?" We all nodded and with no pauses between letters she shockingly quickly said "H-O-L-Y B-I-B-L-E" I knew she knew her letters but when I ask her to "read" letters it usually involves long pauses, loss of interest, and lots of "ummm...what's that one called again?" It was pretty awesome.

2. She wrote her name!!! We have not been working on this much at all and certainly not recently (she's still so young!). I was shocked! And it was totally legible!!

3. She drew a face with all of the correct parts! Generally Ella prefers painting or stickers over coloring or drawing so I have yet to see her draw much that actually resembles what it's supposed to be. I'm very impressed.

Guess she just wanted to squeeze a few things in to give us some bragging rights so we can say she did each of these things when she was still two :-) Yay Ella!

Three Cheers for the Letter Factory

I posted a few weeks ago about how Ella had just borrowed the Leap Frog Letter Factory video from Aunt Amy and how she LOVED it. I am here to proclaim the wonders of this video. It's been six weeks and she's probably seen the video 25 times and SHE KNOWS ALL OF HER LETTERS. AND the sounds they make. Pre-video, she could reliably identify "o" and "e" (her letter, as she so affectionately calls it). And, she had NO interest in learning letters. We had talking magnet letters, foam bath toy letters, letter flashcards and she never cared about them at all. We never pushed them on her because she's two so it doesn't really matter if she knows letters. However, it was always in the back of my mind that her friend Lexi has known all the letters for a year! I knew Ella was capable, I just wondered when she'd show enough interest to learn. Well, in stepped Tad, Lilly, and Leap (frogs in the video) and voila...interest galore. Now it hasn't been the video alone that taught her the letters (though I'd give it about 70% of the credit) but it got her interested so that now, she'll sit with me and "read" letters forever.

One of the cutest things about her new found skill is the residue from the video. For instance, she had trouble saying "t" without calling it "tapping t" (it tap dances in the video). And if you ask her what sound "O" makes she'll make a two-pitch "O" sound that sounds like a tarzan yell because that's what O does in the video. She shivers when ever she makes a "C-c-c" sound and says "wuh-wuh-wuh" while bobbing her head like a the Dj/rapper "W" in the video. She's also taken to saying "Okie dokie artichokie" like the frog in the video. It's all just so cute!

To encourage her new learning, we got out our old laptop too and deemed it "Ella's" and she's been requesting words she wants to type, we tell her the letters, she finds them on the keyboard, types them and then gets so excited!! She's typed all of our names and for some reason, always wants to type "tummy" and gets very upset that there's no "E" in it (because it's her letter and I agree, it sounds like it should have one).

So, all this to say, this is my first real experience with an educational video actually educating my child and even better, opening the door for me to teach her. I'm thrilled.

Phases...

If there's anything I've learned as a mom, it's that kids go through phases. In everything: what they like to eat, when/if they like to sleep, and what they like to play with/do. Ella is in some STRONG phases right now.

1.Puzzles
She is SO stinkin' good at puzzles. She does 25 piece jigsaw puzzles by herself in about ten minutes. And she'll take them apart and do them over and over again. Phases where she'll sit and do anything for more than 15 minutes are rare and exciting around here.


2.Leap Frog's Letter Factory Video
We borrowed this a couple weeks ago from a friend. 2 mom friends swear their kids learned all the letters and the sounds they make from this video. Ella doesn't know all the letters yet but she's learned some and she's OBSESSSSSSSED with the video. She's just coming off of being really into Mickey Mouse Clubhouse which at least has many different episodes. This is just one 40 minutes video that she's seen SO many times and begs for daily. At least it's educational and she's enjoying it!

3. Stickers
Ella loved stickers about a year ago but hasn't been too interested for a while. A couple weeks ago Chris sat with Ella at the bar in the kitchen and they played with stickers for over an hour! As I said, Ella (like most 2 yr olds) usually loses interst in most things after about 10-15 minutes but this started something new. It's lasted a couple weeks not and she'll still sit there with stickers and paper for a good 30 minutes. I've fallen in love with her "style." She ALWAYS overlaps the stickers and makes these awesome collage/mosaic looking creations. Someone told her to spread them out on the page but I tell her to go with her style. Way to be unique Ella Bella!




A couple of her creations