once I finally got her to let go of worrying if everything she wrote was spelled correctly, she was liberated a bit from her self-imposed pressure of perfection and now writes all sorts of things all the time. recently she made a list of classes (backwards, of course) that she would be teaching:
1 "finger knitting"
2 "craft"
3 "reading"
4 "learning animals"
and here, the "fairy book"
"once upon a time there was a fairy. she had a crystal."
"then she had a baby. she had another crystal!"
"she grew and grew and grew until she was a grownup and she also had a child"
("mama, this part is a coloring book for you")
she has decided it is already snowflake time. at least they are autumn-colored snowflakes.
a little person she stitched freehand when given a needle, embroidery thread, and felt.
a goodbye love note for her nana, at the end of her last visit~
and her latest thing...... listening to audio books for hours (we've gone from Little House books to Sarah, Plain and Tall, to the Penderwicks and now Peter Pan) while surrounded by all sorts of art supplies. she listens and draws and cuts and glues. fun, fun, fun.
All of it is WONDERFUL! My sister wrote her name perfectly (but backwards) on the bathroom wallpaper when we were little. I think Mom left it there for 20 years! Its a treat to watch Claire grow.
ReplyDeletelove that your mom left it there!
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Wow, I've never seen backwards writing like that - it is good! I thought, at first, you mirrored the photo or something?
ReplyDeleteDon't you love the phonetic spellings when they write? Our little guy is doing the same thing - the other day he wrote out his frustrations after a hard day at school. "I had a hurbl day" (I had a horrible day)...turns out he got in trouble for getting out of his seat multiple times at lunch.
she's funny- every now and then she will write like that- right to left and completely backwards! I do love the creative spelling and the way they try to sound it all out according to what they know so far. and sometimes the way they do it seems to make so much more sense than the way things are actually spelled!
DeleteHow wonderful! the hardest part is letting go and trusting in the process. my eldest read at 7 but my youngest still wasn't ready. I had to let it go and trust she'd learn when ready and at 9 she did! She was reading harry potter within a few years and is now making her way through pride and prejudice. she's 12.
ReplyDeleteClaire has been so language oriented for so long- always asking what something says or how to spell this or that...... it took a while for me to get her to come around to just sounding it out as best she could and doing it on her own. I'll help if she is truly getting frustrated about it, but these days she is usually happy to just let loose.
Deletepride and prejudice at 12, that's great! clearly she has developed a love for reading, and probably in no small part due to the fact that you were supportive and didn't push her before she was ready! it is amazing how every child has their own schedule for things. if only the school system was set up to honor and nurture that!
look at her go!! I love seeing her creativity :)
ReplyDelete:) it is fun to watch!
Deleteit's lovely to see the very beginning of all the thousands and millions of words someone will write in her life.. with my almost 4-year old, we don't want to start academics too early but she already loves writing "E" and "H", filling a whole page and always in caps.
ReplyDeleteisn't it? I love that I am able to watch the process so closely. it is such fun. Claire showed interest in reading and writing early and I wanted to be careful not to push it, but to help nurture that curiosity and interest in a healthy way. I remember her first "E"s- they were capital and had many, many little horizontal lines as opposed to just three. so sweet.
DeleteShe is growing up so fast and has a beautiful creative mind, a honour to watch.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way, about all of it!
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LOVE THIS!! i have some of those books stored away.... mmmn... mama treasures for sure :) the backwards list! is she left handed? my daughter layla is primarily left handed but has always been ambidextrous, but she would occasionally switch and write everything entirely backwards like that. i always found it so fascinating. we also have the snowflakes going on :) they even broke out some christmas pandora the other day... i have to admit... i really loved it. the autumn snowflakes though, adorable!!!
ReplyDeleteshe isn't left handed, but every now and then she will write from right to left and completely backwards. it is pretty wild to watch and when she hands me whatever it is, I don't think she even realizes that she has written it differently than she usually does!
Deleteoh..... I am so ready for the Celtic Christmas pandora station! and the She and Him Christmas station, the Billie Holiday Christmas station....... mmmmm good.
How lovely! I really like that embroidery. She is certainly writing up a storm. I so enjoy watching kids become passionate about things.
ReplyDeleteme too! I thought the little person was so cute! and yes, she IS! every day she writes several little things- either signs or stories or descriptions of things. it is such fun to watch, and I can usually make it out fairly well.
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