Story Time

This week we did our history reading a little different. Since we were talking about Columbus, I found a ship color page and asked Selena to color it while I read from our history book. This proved to not work well with Selena, who found it hard to concentrate on both at the same time, she wanted to listen to me read so bad, and wanted to color at the same time, but the two activities fought for her full attention.

In an attempt to salvage the frustrated project, I cut out the colored picture and asked if she wanted to just write her own story.

Ship By Selena

Selena saw a ship.

She thought about it.

As soon as she thought about the ship it sank.

The people on the ship got off.

They fell into the water.

They cried and cried for help.

The coast guard helped the people.

The end.

Story Time

As we drove in the car yesterday, Selena was telling me all about the birds. How they fly, build nests, lay eggs, and how the babies hatch. I truly wanted to capture this in our story time this week. I had Selena pick out her favorite picture of a bird. The story we got wasn’t quite what I heard in the car, but it definitely illustrates a great beginning for a study on birds.

Robins by Selena

Robins are birds with baby birds.

They hatch from eggs.

They live in a nest.

The mommy feeds her babies worms.

Someday the babies will fly.

The End

I was trying to push to get more out of Selena like maybe another page, but it seems when we get to the bottom of the first page, she thinks we are done, and she can’t write anymore. I am going to have to try to figure out how to do this so that she realizes we can write more and fill up the other side of the page as well. Any suggestions?

Story Time

I thought this worked right in with the curriculum I am reviewing. They have an area for an Essay, then another area for a short Essay. Well, now Selena is no where to the point of writing an Essay, so we used the theme for Story Time.

Mud Pit By Selena

Selena sank in the mud pit.

The water goes through the mud.

This is like quicksand because it is very wet, dirty and you sink.

The End.

She had her choice to write about our mud pit or one of our visits to the ocean beach. She chose the mud pit, probably because she remembers all to well what it felt like to sink in the mud, fall and come out so dirty.

Story Time

During Children’s time Sunday at church, Selena and the rest of the kids were learning about what it means to be born again. After church Selena asked me if we could find a picture of a cross and write a story about Jesus. Of course one only knows, that I went right to work to find just what Selena wanted.

The Cross

By Selena

Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

Jesus is in heaven with God

The End

Though it is short, it definitely is to the point. I am still sometimes amazed over how easy her little stories are just flowing from her since we started this exercise, and to think this is only our 4th story we have wrote. I also have to admit that I am proud of her understanding of what God did for her.

I think her favorite part is still her ability to read each story after it is finished. She can hardly wait to be able to share her story with Papa. She is always so proud of her accomplishment. I am now looking forward to the day when she is able to do the writing by herself as well.

Story Time

This week I had Selena help me pick out the picture that she wanted to write about. The last couple of weeks I have picked out ones I thought she would find interesting. As soon as she laid eyes on a picture of Mount Rainier, she wasn’t about to look any further. I also want to say that this story just flowed from Selena with no prompting at all on my part.

Mount Rainier

By Selena

It is made out of ice.

It has snow.

It is a big mountain that I see in the car.

The End.

Her favorite part after writing the story is the opportunity to read it back to me and to Papa. We are really enjoying doing this. I love the way that Selena so easily comes up with a Title on her own, she always tells me, “My story has to have a title, and you have to make sure people know that I am the author.” I notice that since we have started doing this, her books are even coming more to life for her.

Story Time

Just like last week, I searched through some magazines to find a picture that would interest Selena. I came across a picture of the clock tower in Spokane, and wondered if she how much she would remember about it and our vacation. I glued it into our tablet, and Selena and I sat down to write a story. Selena was pretty surprised to see the picture, and the story flowed fairly easily for her.

The Clock

By Selena

The clock is in Spokane, Washington.

The clock chimes music.

Uncle T.J. was with me to see this clock.

The clock in in a park.

The End

After this story was written Selena just had to have her picture book of our vacation. She thumbed through it giggling and laughing as she looked at all the fine memories she has from our vacation this last summer. Until she discovered that Pal had finally chewed a hole in one of his toys and was pulling the stuffing out. She cried telling me that the toy had to be made ok. When I explained it wasn’t possible that we would have to throw it away and buy him a new one, she was all pouty and sad. Silly girl!

Story Time With Play Dough

Selena wanted to do her art box this evening, but after we had a busy day in Olympia, I decided instead to pull out the play dough. One of the things that our Pediatrician noticed at Selena’s last appt. was the fact that her right side muscle tone does not seem to be quite as strong as that on the left. She noticed it when she was looking at Selena’s face, her right side doesn’t seem to be quite as plump as the left. There is really nothing much to worry about but I decided it was time to start a little of our own occupational therapy here at home to see if we can’t get the right side dexterity to start building itself a little bit.

So instead of art box we did play dough story telling. We first started out just having fun with the play dough. As I watched Selena I noticed she did in fact have more firmness in her left hand when dealing with the play dough then the right, so we started pounding the clay out on the table, pressing it down as hard as we could using first the left hand, then the right hand.

I then took the play dough and using large amounts to start with had Selena start squeezing it as hard as she could using first the left hand then the right hand. I kept telling her to squeeze with the right side, just as hard as she did the left hand. Now Selena might be fixing to be left handed, which is fine with me, but I did notice through this little exercise that she did begin to realize her right side had just as much strength in it so long as she applied herself, instead of being so dainty.

Then the fun part came in. I gave Selena a small rolling pin and a star shaped cookie cutter. I told her we could create anything we wanted to. She copied me as I rolled the play dough in my hands to make a ball, and then rolled into a long thin worm, as Selena called it. We then went to work on rolling it out and cut star shape cookies. At first Selena acted like she really didn’t want to push that hard on the cookie cutter, so I kept telling her she had to push down as hard as she could. Pretty soon the cookies were all over the table.

As we talked about the stars, we got on the subject of families, now don’t ask me how Selena got families out of the stars, but she did. I asked her one simple question, “What does your family look like?” Next thing I knew we were making fish, she had to have a large one for Papa, a medium size one for Mama, and a small one for Selena. I wrote fish up on the white board, and Selena sounded out the word. I then asked her where her fish family lived. At first she didn’t quite know what to answer, so I gave her more play dough and she made a round glob, she said it came from the Ocean. I asked her if it was a barnacle, and she informed me no it is just a rock from the ocean, then she went back to playing with the fish. Her story took off.

Selena’s Fish Family

Mama fish goes and gets food for little Selena fish.  Papa fish goes away for the day. Papa fish comes back at night, and kisses little Selena fish and Mama fish. Papa fish takes Mama fish and Selena fish for a fun day. They ride a boat, fly in a plane. They swim together, and play together. Papa fish is in front, little Selena fish is in the middle and Mama fish is in the back. They play, swim, boat, fly, all day long. The End!

We must have spent a good hour just playing with play dough this evening. I am going to make this an activity we try to do quite a bit in the evenings together. It was so much fun, and I absolutely loved to see how Selena seen her family.