January 22, 2003 - 11:14 a.m.

'Tis Cold Season

One child home sick yesterday, two today... They really aren't that sick (mostly stuffy noses and a little coughing), but they are both tired, and since it is almost as cold as Siberia up here (windchill was -15 this morning) it wouldn't be advisable to take them out much. Luckily the woman I share carpool duties with volunteered to take the oldest to school, so the rest of us haven't left the house at all today.

It's a gloriously sunny day outside, which keeps fooling my brain into thinking it much be warming up. Then I notice that the ice on the driveway isn't melting even a little bit and my ear catches the sound of the wind howling in the trees. Eek! Needless to say, we are driving to the bus stop even though it's not much more than fifty yards from the house. Today I will sit on my ass in the minivan with the heat blasting while we wait for the bus and not feel guilty in the least!

M and B were amusing me this morning by quoting significant chunks of the movie, Ice Age. It's amazing what kids can parrot!

B spent some time this morning making "frog food" out of playdough. Yesterday he made a pond so I think that idea morphed into frog food, but it still seemed an amusing choice.

M was working in a workbook which gave me the opportunity to see how her reading skills are coming along. She's six and is really a pretty competent reader. I have to confess I don't have the most patience when it comes to helping kids read. I get frustrated when a word I just helped her with trips her up again, but I usually manage to bite my tongue and just help her figure it out again. Lately she is really starting to get the hang of how a silent e changes a vowel from short to long. Often she will read the word phonetically and then revise it to the proper pronunciation. More and more often, though she is looking at the word as a whole and using the silent e to interpret the vowel's sound. It's pretty cool to be confronted with the mechanics of the process of learning to read that way! She is going to be so far ahead when she goes to first grade next year! I think it may be a good situation for her, though, since she is pretty quiet and easily intimidated. I think being one of the most fluent readers in her class, as is likely to be the case, will help give her confidence. We'll see.

today's project: fun with glitter glue!

musing about: how I can keep from getting the kids' cold

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