Garden Helper Lily

I harvested a bunch of moringa and basil this morning. I strung it up and I'm hanging it to dry. I also ordered some tea bags from Amazon for the moringa, so I can make tea.

I have a cute little helper nibbling on the basil flowers :-)

Books and Birds

Since Ellie is learning how to read, she's also been engaging in books much differently. I used to read to the birds, and they'd hang out--not really paying attention, but enjoying the sound of my voice and the company. Now Ellie looks at the books--she looks at the words and the pictures, because she's understanding that they mean something.

Often, she'll touch the letters she's already learned, and she looks at the animals with more interest. It's fascinating to me--all of these things she will be able to understand because she's acquiring language. For instance, we often sit in the backyard by the creek and watch the fish. For all she knows, they are blobs in a big blob, and they move, and that's it.

But now, I've taught her F means Fish and we read books about fish. We saw youtube videos and pictures of fish, and we went to a fish store and looked at fish. She'll learn that fish swim in water (and she'll know what water is, because she drinks it). And when we sit outside to watch the fish, I can point and tell her, "Those are fish too!"

So... it's amazing how much language opens up an individual's experience.

Ellie is terrified of trucks. When we get to T, I hope to teach her about trucks, and get her a little toy truck. We'll drive around and look at trucks and watch them on the internet, and I hope she'll understand that they aren't scary, once she knows what they are.

Ellie Gets a Chalkboard

Ellie is usually a monkey--naughty and everywhere--but now that I'm actively teaching her, she's actually a pretty serious little student. My Mom came to visit this weekend and we worked on lots of home projects on my little rehab house! We painted the cockatoo girls' room, of course, and put in the base boards, and then on Monday I painted a chalkboard on the wall, to help Ellie with learning.

My mom was so, so astonished by how much Ellie knew. On Friday night when she arrived, Ellie knew and performed perfectly for:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - and counting lemons up to 5
Picking what object starts with what letter - elephant, apple, banana, cup
And identifying the phonetic letters: A, B, C, E, F

On Saturday I taught her about ducks and cats. We read the "Hello, Duck!" book, which was cute. :)

So anyway, when it comes to learning, Ellie settles down immediately--calm and interested, like an angelic little Kindergartner. She sits on her little play stand near the chalk board and properly and correctly touches all of the items presented... Little cutie! :)

Today I taught her to count how many 'dots' are on the chalkboard (up to five). It was a bit of a challenge to get her to figure out that she was counting *dots* on a chalkboard (they are 2 dimensional, and she's used to 3 dimensional). But she figured it out! We also worked on spelling BELL and BALL--it's clicking, but not all the way there yet.

After about 35 minutes, she hopped off her play stand and onto Isabelle's cage, went in for a drink, and then went off to play with her toys :D

So much fun! :)

E is for Elephant :)

Ellie learned about elephants on Wednesday. We watched YouTube videos and looked at pictures... and yesterday I bought her a stuffed elephant. She was all excited -- knew exactly what it was :)

My Mom is in town visiting us. Ellie also reviewed all of her letters and numbers and colors with 100% accuracy for my Mom :)

I love my little genius creature!

Teaching Ellie is so very fun! It's like exploring the world all over again! <3