- That she really likes the neighbor boy who babysits her. He visits while I'm busy and out of town for 4 hours/day and plays with them, and she cries for him when she's outside because she wants him to come over to play. (She hit her hormones this year, so is officially a Teenager.)
- That the fireworks were super scary and she was all Traumatized Creature.
- That she's still mad at me for traveling so much--although the neighbor babysits, so there is that upside.
- That she's bored because she's kind of mastered reading, and doesn't think stories or CVC flashcards are interesting.
- Some combination of the above
So... Ellie keeps 'anting' - biting chunks out of the cards and tucking them into her feathers and ignoring my attempts to teach her, while simultaneously acting out as Bored Ellie, nipping me, annoying her sisters, acting angry and eating the house.
I've been trying and trying to find ways to reach her--she's quite upset. I tried writing more interesting stories about her fish and her elephant... she ate the cards. I wrote out Dr. Seuss stories on flash cards. She did it half-heartedly a few times, but they don't hold her interest. (She did actually score 100% accuracy, though, go her reading sentences!)
Last week I decided to teach her "Talk". We can talk about her feelings using yes/no cards. To explore her feelings about the possible crush (and also secretly test her knowledge and help her learn time) I asked her things last week. Parker (the neighbor) had come over on Wednesday night and Thursday morning to feed/water them because I was too busy with work. So I asked her questions about it.
- Do you like Parker? (yes)
- Did Parker come over yesterday? (yes)
- Did Parker come over today? (yes)
- Did Parker play with you? (no - probably accurate, he was just feeding/watering them, although he'll usually hold Ellie for a while)
- Did Parker pick you up? (yes)
- Do you want Parker to come over tomorrow? (yes - good - he's babysitting them all weekend and through Tuesday since I'm in Pennsylvania)
I figure that maybe, if the problem is her emotions and her crush right now, we can dialog through her feelings. Perhaps if she feels *heard* and *understood* she will feel better. Maybe I can empathize with her and, when he can't visit, ask her what kinds of things would help her feel better, like a nice cup of hot tea. So there - she learned the word "TALK" as an activity resource, and it will be something available to her.
Thursday night I also bit the bullet and decided to start teaching her music appreciation. She loves music, and already knows a few categories - dance, piano, guitar, and Baroque. She really likes Baroque a lot, and often chooses it for us to all listen to. Clearly vocabulary and stories aren't working right now, but I need to find some way to stimulate her brain--for her sake and that of the household!
I had another one of our awkward conversations: "Ellie, Baroque is a style of music. Composers make music. Baroque music is made by composers, too. These are some of the composers."
I taught her vocabulary next.
She nailed them! Then we focused on Bach - we looked at pictures of Bach on my phone, and I explained that he made music. We watched an orchestra play the Brandenburg Concerto #3 - and I wrote it on a card. During the music, I gave her treats for touching the card... and did the same for Air on a String of G.
Then I tested her with the music, and she correctly identified the titles :) And I asked her who wrote them, holding up Bach and Vivaldi - and she picked Bach!
Their experiments are less than two weeks away! The experiments are supposed to be on simple Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) words, such as MEL, CALL, BALL, etc. I'm fairly certain she's going to boycott her experiments... but I might just be able to get her to read composers and the names of musical compositions. Wouldn't that be funny?
"I'm sorry my bird won't read the boring easy words, she prefers Stravinsky."
Oy.
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