Mr. Uno has been reading a book or chapter of a book several nights a week. We have also incorporated Explode The Code Online into his week. I started using sight words again after taking a break from them. They stressed him out so I thought a cooling off period was in order. He's doing much better with them now. There is still an issue of mixing D and B and writing backwards (IE: "gniyrt" instead of "trying") but I am choosing to wait a little longer before we jump to conclusions on potential dyslexia instead of it simply being his age and maturity level since it is not often that this happens. Uno has been writing every day for weeks now and I do not doubt it is due to my backing off of making him do it so that in that space he found a desire to write. For example, he makes cards, pictures that include written messages, and lists. I am not, however, making him do journal pages right now. For a while we did journal pages for field trips and such but he started throwing fits when I would ask him to pull the paper out. We work on his cards and such and he is improving. At this stage, the point is to encourage desire to learn, not to force memorization. (Even though I still struggle with remembering that.)
Counting is a feat Uno is trying to master. He recently attempted to count to 300. During that attempt, he reached 258, we exited the vehicle, and that was the end of the attempt for that day. We are still rather relaxed on memorizing math, as well. Encouraging his desire to learn through his interests is working well for him rather than having him sit down with math problems which he pays no attention to. Everyone is happier and he is retaining the information better this way.
We have had a rough time finding our way to what works for Uno and the rest of us. He has sensory issues but I've been unable to figure out exactly what they are. We have changed our diet to eliminate a lot of potential sensitivities and allergies to see if this helps him. The list of obvious triggers is quite long. It is working, thankfully. He started off having a VERY rough time with the diet change and was throwing a fit every day for over a week because he wanted food we no longer ate. We have tested out adding certain foods back in and it was quite obvious the next few days that we absolutely need to avoid those items. Uno now understands that while the diet is hard, it is healthier and we are happier (excepting when we find out that we accidentally let something sneak through our label reading defenses). It has been quite the nutritional lesson for both children, really. Both thoroughly enjoy being able to help cook so much more often now!
Ms. Dos has been learning some letters! We are going more of a Montessori route with her and teaching the sound before the name. She knows T and M very well. I believe she also has sensory issues but am grateful that they are either different or not as severe as the oldest child's. She doesn't like the sandpaper letters. They have sat unused for quite some time now. I can pull it out and show her the letter but she does not want to trace it. She will trace the letter on our bingo marker pages and if I simply write the letter out. For that reason, I am trying to come up with some inviting and intriguing ideas on new letters for her to trace.
We are very happy with Ms. Dos's knowledge of colors! The only colors she really confuses are the darker ones but is isn't that she doesn't know them. It is more as though she is asking to be sure. Usually, Dos says the right color when asking. She can match her Montessori color tablets quickly and easily. I plan to go further with it and do a three part card sort of chart for her to place them with the written name soon.
Both Mr. Uno and Ms. Dos are quite interested in the world around them, to which I am extremely grateful. My only regret is that resources and time can only go so far. Our field trips teach them so much! They pick up on things better when I leave them to their exploring with very few interruptions. Trust me, they ask enough questions for the entire time to be filled with education. We often come home to google things that I didn't know the answer to and it sparks a conversation that can run on like the Energizer Bunny. Ms. Dos is the typical three year old in the fact that her realizations spark a question days (or even a week or more) later, too. It is quite hilarious to suddenly have a question pop up about a field trip we took three days beforehand.
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