BUSY DAYS, NEW ART, AND LESSONS

Mondays and Tuesdays have become very busy for our family. After school yesterday, we rushed home to take Buster out for a walk, then get all our chores done before heading to spin class and family swim (Jay and I have attempted to give the kids mini-lessons before our trip to the waterpark next week). While I repacked school bags, signed the daily reports, paid the bills, washed lunch boxes and other dishes, packed the dance and soccer bags, remade Cora's bed, took the trash up to the street, set up the coffee pot, picked out the kids' school clothes, and got all our gym stuff together, the kids quietly and calmly worked on a new art project (I know, QUIETLY - amazing, right?) This hypotrochoid set seems to be a big hit, even though it's going to take them a while to figure out the logistics of holding all the pieces correctly at the same time while also applying the appropriate force to make the designs (the one shown in the photo is my example for them). James had a much easier time at this than Cora, but he still got frustrated that his "flowers" didn't look like my designs. He wanted them to be perfect, but after a dozen attempts he still wasn't seeing what he wanted to. I promised him he'd figure it out and that he just needed to practice, but he was unconvinced and visibly frustrated...

I think this is actually a really good hands-on lesson for him in patience and persistance - he's been getting very frustrated lately at things that take him longer to master than he thinks they should or when he makes mistakes (examples: reading, learning to ride his bike, building his new Lego sets). We don't ever demand perfection in anything (we don't even expect that from ourselves, in any aspect of life), so it's a little unnerving to see him get so stressed out about getting a letter/word/sound wrong or placing a Lego piece in the wrong spot. He seriously holds his breath as he places those Legos... and you wonder why he's so proud of his finished products! When we first took his training wheels off, he was more worried about not being able to just get on and go immediately (and go fast) than he was about falling or getting hurt. When he reads, he wants to just KNOW the words, not sound them out or take his time. I found last night that I had to hide the photo above the sentence because he'd just look at 1-2 letters of a word and use a word that he already knows which also applied to the scene he was seeing instead of sounding out the new word (for example, two kids playing soccer - he could do the words "and, ball, fell", but had a hard time with the kids' names: Don and Jack, so he said "kick" instead of Jack). His phonics tests at school are usually 100%, but every now and then we get a page home with a note that says he knew the correct sound, but named the letter wrong or vice versa (he tends to confuse "d" with "b" and "p", "n" with "h", and "v" with "y"). Is that normal for this age? Or do we need to worry about dyslexia? Or is he just overthinking things, so worried that he's going to get it wrong?

 

Not to leave Cora out of this pondering, she is the exact opposite of her brother... While swimming last night, she was determined to make it across the pool by herself using a kickboard (we are trying SO HARD to get them to swim horizontally and not vertically, teaching them to splash while they kick), and she was furious with us for following so closely, reaching out to re-balance her or rescue her when she fell off and went under (how dare we, right?), and repeatedly reprimanded us with "Stop touching me! I got it!" and "I don't need you!" and "Leave me alone, I can do it by myself!" This was after about 30 minutes of her continuously jumping off the side without waiting for us to pay attention and be ready to catch her. On the bright side, she is completely gung-ho about learning to swim this year and is already comfortable swimming underwater and kicking forward. If only she'd do it where she can easily stand when she gets tired or runs out of breath... Oh yeah, and as I sit in the corner doing James' reading homework with him, if he pauses too long, she'll chime in from across the room with the correct sound that the letter makes... Real confidence boost to him, I'm sure. That girl is the main cause of all my gray hairs...