Erica’s latest interest is astronomy. She knows more about it than I do (which of course isn’t really all that hard to do). She is constantly telling me about things she is learning about astronomy from the (1977) Charlie Brown Encyclopedia of Earth and Space we checked out from the library. She reads the encyclopedia like a novel, and absorbs basically everything she reads. I’m constantly amazed by the things she tells me, and especially by the fact that she recites it verbatim at the dinner table.
Isaac is starting to learn the sounds of the letters. There are a few he knows, while most he is still working on. We have a lot of letter magnets that are on the fridge, and while I’m in the kitchen cooking he will ask me what the letters say. His favorite is the letter T, and any time he sees a T, in a book, on a sign, or anywhere else, he will announce "That’s a T and he says t-t". In addition to the letter magnets we also have numbers and a few symbols (multiplication, division, addition, subtraction signs) and today I spent a long time trying to convince him that numbers and symbols don’t have a sound. I’m still not sure he believes me, but we’ll keep at it.
Cambria’s latest accomplishment is going up and down the stairs by herself. She has mastered going up, and is good at going down as long as we help her get started. But if she tries to start herself going down, she will approach the top of the stairs, lay down on her stomach (still facing the stairs, or facing to the side of the stairs) and then begin scooting backwards. And then she starts fussing because she is getting farther away from the stairs instead of going down them. But for the most part, she is doing very well. I try not to watch too closely as she ascends the stairs, though, because she has recently decided she is big enough to stop on a stair and look around. When I watch, that is just too much stress for me to handle, and I call out to her and then she tries to turn around and it turns into a big disaster. So instead I try to look away and praise her as she is learning. She does just fine without me, as do all the kids.
