Cecily made fossils with me today. She discovered what plaster can do, the unique properties of silica, and the term, “paleontologist”.
She also discovered she could sound out the word, “bacteria”!!! Just so long as I didn’t pay any attention or realize she was doing it… Her level of development in the area of literacy is fascinating to observe. She has a significant amount of sight words at rapid fire, however continues to spell even those she knows by sight in a phonetic form. It is quite refreshing to see how she hears our words. Just the other day, she wrote an invitation for our friend, Ken, whose last name is Groff. She wrote, “to KEN GRoLfF”. And true to form, we do not correct her at this stage, but find examples to place in front of her during her day that demonstrates the accurate spelling/form. This technique has proven very successful.
A week or so ago, Karen Hilborn was at our home and we were discussing some of the methods and techniques we use with Lily for the purposes of education. Karen is a retired school principal, administrator, education major (and also a socio/cultural anthropology major, if you can believe that!! A woman after my own!). Karen prides herself on her out of the box thinking, dedication, time working in Watts (where she opened and ran a private school for near a decade), and her efforts now to represent and advocate for children in the foster system. Needless to say, from an educational and independent/creative standpoint, Karen is a motivating force, with a wealth of experience and insight.
I spent about an hour talking with Karen about the various experiences, methods (if you can call them that, unintentionally developed perhaps), and successes we have had. I had the opportunity to explain to her that one of the things we do when Lily provides a written word that is phonetically spelled, but not accurate for the likes of English, instead of correcting her, we simply look for examples of that same word throughout her day, and point them out indirectly as many times as possible. We never say, “See, this is the right way”, or “You didn’t spell that right.”. Instead, we simply find poignant and effective examples for her to observe, and then we wait. Within a day or two, or sometimes sooner, she will invariably write that same word again on something she’s created, and it will be either spelled accurately, or her compilation reflects her mind sorting through the knowledge that her initial phonetic spelling, and the English version, contain differences.
We trust the process.
The process takes its own shape, and evolves in her time. And does it evolve! When her learning is unforced, it is profoundly more concise, layered, and complex. Her processing and resulting responses consistently prove much more interesting than what we could have possibly hoped for if we’d just delivered the information we felt she needed to attain. This way, she absorbs and then she brings new ideas and understanding to us.
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Attached is a pic and video of the fossil event.
A few noteworthy points from the videos (attached and not yet):
– Spike (fairy) is doing her best to make an imprint of her wings on the counter, much like that which is found on the sample fossil she discusses in the video.
– She discusses the fossil sample possibly being ribs from a squished lizard
– She discusses mammals, types of dinosaurs and whether they had feathers and not fur, or skin, or nothing sorta
– We talk about chestnuts (for which, both of us have just today learned the nuts she collected from Chicago last year happen to be chestnuts… Colorado doesn’t lend itself to such trees and so, I’ve never seen one before, especially in its natural habitat)
– She assisted in the measurements necessary to properly mix the plaster, as well as the sand/silica. Lily has a good understanding of whole/half, and she’s beginning to demonstrate concepts of 1/3 and 1/4. She also attempted to mix the plaster and sand in the tiny bowls provided by the science kit, but in the end, requested my assistance. Managing the liquid, whose state continually modified as a result of the mixing, proved frustrating for her in trying to prevent it from spilling out of the bowl.
-Lily determined what object she wanted to use to cast the mold for her “molded fossil” example; she chose Tinkerbell’s bell lantern. She came to this conclusion after a few attempts with other objects (chestnut and chestnut pieces included), that the bell was the best option because it would lend the most obvious form.
We realized, after she demonstrated her ability to order the pieces for the collage in numerical and alphabetical order, that the resulting story told was illogical. So, Mama pulled the parent guide up and took a look for the desired final placement of the collage components. As it turns out, by then, she’d lost interest, which I think was a direct result of me telling her that her triumphant placement in the order she determined was not likely the intended order. I think I could have just left that redo out.
There is a third video she and I made, but it’s near a gig, so until I get a chance to chop it up a bit, it will remain resident in her folder on Angie’s laptop.
Including this for reference and enjoyment:
And with that, I will sign off this post, noting that, I am, we are all, on our way back – to life as we want it.