Learning more everyday...

A. can write her name now. She still likes for me to write it out so she can check the order of the letters...but she can write them all recognizably. B. is having trouble - her name has harder letters (more curves) and is also one letter longer. So I'm making connect the dot letters for her. We talk through each letter: first a straight line then a curve from this dot through that dot and back to this dot - etc. I think A. is a little bit ahead coordination-wise, too. I'm holding off on teaching them the alphabet and how to write all of the letters because the book I'm going to use to teach them to read has them use some extra symbols that represent the extra sounds letters make (ie C as a hard and soft c has different symbols). I think they are almost ready for reading lessons. First, I had to figure out how to occupy one while I teach the other because trying to teach them together would be difficult. I would have to keep them from distracting each other, and one of them always takes the lead while the other watches. Thank goodness for preschool Internet sites! So, we're all set to start at the beginning of the school year. We're learning how to write names and probably numbers in preparation for the 15 minute reading lessons. It's also a practice in patience for me.

**Side note***Kids are usually pretty excited to write their names to send to Grandma and Grandpa - but they lose interest around the time they are asked to write their names for the 3rd set of Grandparents. And just try explaining to a three year old which of their three sets of rural living Kansas grandparents get each picture! All three sets use 'Grandma' and 'Papa' as their names too. Luckily my dad and his wife have different names ('Sugar' and 'Colonel') so that clears that up a bit - of course my dad has kids not much older than mine so they seem less like Grandparents than the other three sets.

Another Grandparent note...we ate supper with a couple who had 'Grandma' in town. The girls chattered nonstop at her and A. was totally heartbroken that she didn't come to Wal-Mart with us. A. had somehow got it in her mind that since we were making pictures for Grandma and Papa that they were coming to our house. She kept asking if they were here yet :(. So she was pretty willing to adopt the 'Grandma' at supper and all the more upset to find out we weren't going to spend any more time with her. It's those times that I feel the most guilty for living far away from all the Grandparents.