Ellie: Morning Hero of the House

Stopping at the library each month for new books for my girls feels like being a parent at Christmastime. I find topical books (this month, pigs, since Ellie seems to have interest), as well as learning books (numbers for Ellie, colors for Isabelle)... and then bring them home as a surprise to my cute girls and we read them all month long.

This morning I worked with Isabelle on her lessons. She started learning to read words a few weeks ago. She doesn't grasp patterns as quickly as Ellie, but she's getting there. So she is learning the phonetic alphabet, but she's also learning to apply those letters to the idea of words.

She's having trouble transferring the sounds to the entire word, but I think she'll get there.

ANYWAY, since she's learning small words, I figured it was time to introduce her to the concept of books. Here's Isabelle learning to touch the page. :)

Ellie was the hero of the house, however. After teaching Isabelle, I brought Ellie over to work on book-reading. It was clear she didn't really want to read - she kept scurrying off and on her learning basket. I figured she wanted to go outside, but wasn't going to let her off so easily. I brought her little whiteboard over so she'd have to read it and pick "outside".

Instead, she darted to Eggs and Juice and bobbed between those two like a deranged mouse. So... eggs and juice it was! LOL! And everyone loves eggs and juice, so all of the birds were excited to have breakfast together!

Ellie and the Science Museum!

Ellie and I were invited to speak to a parrot club about how she's learning to read.  It was held at the science museum in a big city an hour from our home. She's a pretty good sport about going out - she enjoys meeting new people, so I stuck her in a travel carrier and we set off. The museum itself was pretty frightening to her, unfortunately. I didn't anticipate all the noise and movement - and the room was on the second floor, past so much activity (poor thing)!

Then, in the room, lots of people had brought their birds, so... even more stuff.

The lecture went alright. We spoke a few months ago to another bird club a bit closer. There weren't any other birds there and it was at our vet's office, so she was familiar with the location. She saw a lot of people she already knew there, so she had a good time and did soooo well with her cute reading!

At the science museum, between the chilly room, the trauma from coming in, and all the birds (and noise) in the room, she was solidly overwhelmed. She mostly wanted to sit and warm her little feet up, so didn't read a lot. That was fine - I brought lots of backup videos, and then started using my mom as an example for the learning process. That woke Ellie up! She was NOT going to be outdone! So she popped up and--quite halfheartedly--demonstrated how to learn colors. She's a hilarious, apathetic little anti-hero. She did a few other little reading examples before skulking off to warm her feet and recover from trauma once more.

Getting out, I covered her traveling cage, but someone was pressure-washing the sidewalk outside... scariest noise ever for her... poor thing. She's still (two days later) a little upset by the whole experience. On the way home I stopped at a Greek restaurant and we played together and ate some Greek food to cheer her up.

Oh well. So many lessons learned! It was our second community lecture (the first went really, really well), and it was a good and low-pressure place, so that worked out. :)

Time After Time

If you fall I will catch you
I'll be waiting...
Time After Time.

It's been a neat learning week for my cute girls! Ellie is enjoying our new sessions on units of time. I began by teaching her vocabulary: the days of the week, today, tomorrow, yesterday, morning, afternoon, night, and then added to that a lot of the daily activities. So we just practiced "hearing" the words and selecting them on flashcards. Every day, throughout the day, I'd also tell her "Today is Monday" (or whatever).

I put the days of the week on the wall with a little arrow, and the arrow moves to indicate the day of the week. Every day I say, "Today is ____. Touch ___!" and she touches that word on the wall. Then I say, "Yesterday was ______" - she touches the word; "Tomorrow is _____", etc.

After we'd done two days of vocabulary and wall practice, I started pairing her flash cards.
TODAY | MONDAY
TOMORROW | TUESDAY
YESTERDAY | SUNDAY

Hence, this conversation successfully ensued the other day!
Me: Ellie, what's today? 
Ellie: Saturday
Me: What was yesterday? 
Ellie: Friday
Me: What is tomorrow? 
Ellie: Sunday

She doesn't actually know what ANY of that means. We're still working on pairing concepts, but I was so very, very proud of her for pairing "yesterday" with "Friday", etc! It's a huge start!

Today we started pairing her "Today is MONDAY" vocabulary with the activities of Monday:

I held up flashcards: TODAY | MORNING | MOM CLEANS ROOM
TODAY | MORNING | EAT | BREAKFAST | EGGS
TODAY | MORNING | MOM MAKES JUICE
TODAY | MORNING | ELLIE KISSES MOM
TODAY | MORNING | VOCAB
TODAY | MORNING | SHOWER

TODAY | AFTERNOON | MOM WORKS
TODAY | AFTERNOON | ELLIE PLAYS IN ROOM

TODAY | NIGHT | ELLIE READS BOOK
TODAY | NIGHT | SLEEP


I began teaching Isabelle her ABC's last week. I love this little girl... she is my heart! As tender and affectionate as she is, I didn't actually think she was all that, um, learning-oriented. But she's really, really getting there! And she looooooves learning! Her little eyes sparkle with happiness when she's practicing her letters and words! She's so proud to be learning like her big sister!!!

As of today, Isabelle has learned A, B, C, D, E, L, and T. She's also learned vocabulary words: VOCAB, SHOWER, OUTSIDE, BALL, BANANA and BELL. This reminds me that I've forgotten to be adding her vocabulary as she learns new letters. Oops!

Anyway, she's reading her very first words now! She doesn't *totally* get the concept, but she's really, really hanging in there!!! I think it'll get easier with time.

These two are so different. Ellie seems to grasp ideas as fast as I can toss them at her. She's just sharp and THERE, dying to learn, almost intrinsically understanding what I'm teaching her as quickly as I put it out there. BUT she's impulsive. She selects wrong words because she wants quick rewards - and because on rote exercises she doesn't want to think anymore. She gets bored, she wants to learn, not practice.

Isabelle is slower with grasping ideas, but she's methodical in her approach. I suspect impulsivity will be less of a challenge for her. She's a delightful student - chatty and dramatic while we work.

Here's a pic from the first day she learned words.

Science Becomes Her

I've been trying to figure out how to do All of the Science on Ellie, of course. I thought:
1. Maybe I should collaborate with an actual scientist. I thought maybe I'd go to the local university, march down the psychology corridor and find some researcher to collaborate with me on the study. Problem: it seems scientists steal each other's ideas a lot. And I'm not exactly set up to pound this out fast--I have a day job :(
2. Maybe I should do it myself. I read about amateur scientists online... and none of them collaborated with normal scientists.

So, I decided to call my much-beloved avian veterinarian (who is actually really famous and also a researcher in avian health). She suggested I look up some parrot studies and study their methods.

Research articles are expensive! I spent $39.99 ON ONE ARTICLE. :(:(:(

I started reading a study about parrots and felt kind of sad. As part of the study, they actually scold the parrots/rival participants for not properly participating, and if the parrot isn't cooperating, they threaten the parrot that they are going to walk away and quit.  :( :(

Our learning sessions are always and without exception on Ellie's terms. She's never, ever punished for not wanting to learn... if she doesn't want to work on vocabulary, we will engage in other play activities instead. And scolding isn't really a part of our household. I felt so sad for the birds! I'm glad that avian husbandry is evolving away from ANY fear-based interactions with our birds.

I'm not perfect, I definitely have moments where I'm like, "IF EVERYONE COULD STOP BITING ME THAT WOULD BE GREAT!!!" But punishment/scolding is solidly not part of our lives.

I was dreaming a little about what it would be like to have become a researcher and have a little lab with parrots. And then I realized: I do have a little lab with parrots - three to be precise! We have a cockatoo lab, and both are learning to read! AND I get to work from home! Haha!

I've figured out the study I want to do, and am going to start writing it up. When my mom returns in a few weeks, we'll try to execute it. The really cool thing is that the parrot's accuracy rate in published parrot studies is very similar to Ellie's - 70%-75%.

We've got this!!! And there will be NO scolding!!! Learning and experiments are completely on Ellie's terms!