Monday

A rainy Monday, but it kept us inside and doing lots of work and play.

Julia was very willing to go off to school today. We walked -- took the short cut up and down the hill at the top of our block -- and Julia went off to the swings when we arrived. She swung first on her tummy and then sat at the swing and asked to be pushed. I pushed her once and she started to pump herself. She wasn't totally successful but I can see that she knows how to do it. She went off and played when the first bell rang and the kids came out of the buses. She tries to approach other kids and sometimes looks sad that they don't respond as she wants them to. Julia came and kissed and hugged me before the second (line up) bell. She let me leave instead of asking me to wait until her class starts moving into school.

When she gave me a kiss, Julia asked me if I was going to pick her up. I told her that I was and she was content. Christy wrote last week that Julia has a very hard time going into after school. I know that this was a problem for part of last year, but even then she seemed to enjoy afterschool and liked the people there. I will try talking about afterschool while we walk to school on the days (Tuesday and Thursday) that she goes to it. And also ask Christy.

Julia had a good day at school. Her weekend 'journal', a series of four boxes in which she can draw or write was the best she's ever done. Many of them last year were just scribbles. Today, the sheet said that she ate soup with a drawing of a girl with a big bowl of steaming soup (she wrote 'sop' on the line provided), that she saw dancing and drumming (she wrote 'd' some other letters and 'g'), that she saw a bear (she wrote 'mome'. Did she mean me?), and that she saw a bird dancing (she wrote a whole string of letters that didn't seem to correspond to anything). This is one of the first times that I see her understanding what she is supposed to be doing.

At speech therapy, Julia was able to point out what was wrong in picture cards that Carol showed her. She needed some prompting and help, but she answered every one and kept on task. Carol tried this about 6 months ago and Julia couldn't do it at all. Progress! How I love to measure.

At home tonight, we worked on writing, 'at' words, some computer reading and sound games, a maze sheet, and a 'b' sound sheet. She really is not ready for the 'b' sound sheet. It asked her to circle whether the 'b' sound came at the beginning or end of simple words. Even with me saying the words over and over, and giving her the directions with each word, she really didn't get it. We'll go back to the easier starfall sheets tomorrow.