Nessa learns to tie her shoes ... and a few other things

Tami here -- I have been thinking about resurrecting this blog ever since school started so that I could at least update everyone on what the girls have been up to. I will start with Nessa because we are at the point where nearly anything I say about Megan online needs to be cleared with her first. :-) (But she has all As and accomplished a lot in her first Cross Country season). (Also, for new facebook friends, all of our blog posts show up on both Shawn and my facebook pages as notes)

Isn't that a gorgeous smile? I can tell how proud she is, and I can just hear her going to tell everyone that she can tie!


This morning as after I lifted Nessa into the van and had to quickly tie her shoe I mentioned in passing that she needed to learn to tie her shoes soon.

I was not really complaining though because she has been so busy learning so many other things. I am surprised her head is not swelling with all that knowledge -- like how to read! In a matter of a month things have totally just clicked (like I knew it would at some point) and Nessa has gone from just knowing all the letters and sounds to being able to sound out anything that follows typical phonetics, knowing the most common other rules (like silent e), and memorizing many many sight words! In fact this morning when I dropped Nessa off to school she asked me to stay so she could read to me -- I didn't realize I would be sitting there for 20 minutes! -- it was a long book by her standards (20 to 25 pages??) and while still a very early learning to read type book it was divided into three chapters so I was congratulating her on reading a chapter book. :-)

Nessa has also been busy with many math, science, sensory projects and more. In my next post on her Montessori kindergarten education I will include some specific experiments and works they do in these areas. Nessa went into the year with math as her favorite subject, but at least for awhile reading has claimed that top spot for her attention, and one of the blessings of Montessori is that when Nessa is really interested in working on reading she can chose to work on reading (and related works) most of the day rather than moving from subject to subject. She still works on a wide variety of subjects throughout the week however, and there excellent teacher makes sure the kids are meeting any requirements.



So, back to our story about the morning... Although I had only mentioned shoe tying in passing, Nessa quickly commented that she was going to ask her teacher to get out the tie board today so she could learn, and that is exactly what she did! When I opened my email mid-morning there was a message from her teacher with these pictures! :-)

I'm looking forward to a blessed weekend with a girl who can tie her shoes AND read!