Popcorn and Other Such Things

Here is a list of the "popcorn words" that Zack is required to know by mid May. Strangely enough this first time mom of a kindergartener never saw this list until 2 weeks ago! We have started working from the bottom up so that he can be learning the words his class is working on right now first giving him some sense of success.

Sight Word List
1st 9 Weeks
red yellow blue green purple orange brown white black pink like see are me the

2nd 9 Weeks
you and look at go in is it no of we will yes not am he she have they come

3rd 9 Weeks
may as be can did for has if my do said on to us an went from all some were

4th 9 Weeks
but get or so that was this with here under behind up over top too had make them out many

He is doing extremely well. What I have noticed, however, is that he can know five words like the back of his hand for days on end and then when someone other than a family member asks him to read the words, he completely freezes. He'll read maybe one or two, but he seriously freezes, and behaves as though he has never seen the words. Once home, he rattles them off at sight. What is a mom to do??? :)

I can't say I see it as a huge issue but more having to do with his being so incredibly SHY! The strange thing about Zack is that he is not your typical shy kid. He seems super outgoing - talks none stop, asks a million questions, always is in the middle of the action... He just doesn't do well with the one on one situations where he needs to "perform". This falls right in line with him counting to 100 without a hitch at home but only to 39 for his teacher.

For Sophia, we have been reading, reading, reading. She especially loves going to the library to pick out books. Last night we read "How do Dinosaurs say Good Night?" It was a cute story basically about going to bed nicely. Sophia was a tiny confused by it. She kept saying, "That is not good" when the dinosaur would not go to bed happily. When she first came home, she had trouble falling asleep because of all of the excitement, but she has never been one to fight going to bed. But she did find the book to be quite funny.

After that, we worked on her colors focusing on GREEN crocodiles. It took a while to get her to remember green, but within about 30 minues or so she seemed to retain it. This morning she woke up and said, "Mom can we read that book about the GREEN crocodile"? It seems that now she knows green, blue, pink, red, blue, and yellow. I'm not sure why learning her colors has been so tough for Sophia, but I'm willing to help her work on remembering these things in lots of creative ways.

I checked out a pretty elementary drawing book, and I'll be drawing animals today and instructing her to color them specific colors to see if this will cover another mode of learning. We'll see what works best for her, and we'll work it.

Hopefully, she'll learn her colors and be able to point them out in "popping popcorn" fashion! For her, letters seem to be much easier than colors! The funny thing is that she knows her alphabet very well, but when she sees a letter, she'll say look mom mmmmmmmm for mama instead of the name of the letter - M. So it's, look mom JJJJJJ for Josh or KKKKK for Ken or ZZZZ for Zack or PPPPPPP for popping popcorn. The sounds resonate with her much more than the letter names.

Josh is learning cursive writing, and he's darn excited! He's a natural in the classroom and with little effort, he gets at least Bs in most cases. This is a nice break for the "udder" (as he says other) three kiddos.

Ken continues to have a successful year, but there are signs that he's tiring of all of the hard work. For him, he must work for the Bs that Josh just earns with little effort, so it wears on Ken a bit. It'll be nice for him to have a nice summer break. This year, he'll certainly deserve it!!!

So you see, life around here is about learning, learning, learning! And, this mom/aunt is trying to make it fun, fun, fun all the while not gettting too worried about the little brains in my care!

I begin teaching on March 17th so at that point, I'll expand my teaching to preschool, Kindergarten, second, third (the grade I'll teach), and sixth grades! This should keep me busy! In some ways, it certainly feels like I'm homeschooling.

I've heard the pay is not great for that position though! :)

I'm just wondering. Who are my readers and where are you from????? How did you find me? How long have you been reading? Post a comment if you're so inclined.