Paulina's Progress is Positive!

Paulina is now reading books by herself that extend beyond the phonics readers to the 'begin to read' level. For example, here are a few books she has successfully read by herself over the past week. "I Can Read with My Eyes Shut" by Dr. Seuss, "Draw Me a Star" by Eric Carle, and "Quick, Quack, Quick!" by Marsha Arnold. Go Paulina, Go! Keep up the good work!

Paulina is now very interested in the Rapunzel literacy games on Leap Frog Explorer and she will be playing them tomorrow on our way to BSS for the Junior School Open House - just to have a 'look-see.' :-)

Early Morning Practice

Paulina is diligently working on a comprehensive Reading program which includes some writing (printing)! She gets up early each morning to begin the day with exercises in reading. She practices three times a day and she is improving her English at an exponential rate!

Her goal is to improve her reading by 5 levels over the course of the next two months. Wish her luck! :-)

Cam Jansen Reading Book Series

Paulina's interest has been captured by the most interesting of series of mystery books about the main character, Cam Jansen who has the ability to crack the most diabolical mysteries.

Paulina loves the read alouds and she makes connections with her classmates and school because the main character, Cam is an elementary school aged girl and the plot is always devised from interesting events which move the story along. She makes connections to real life situations by knowing and learning about what is good, bad and wrong. Every time she listens to a read aloud she always has a positive learning experience. Paulina loves this series and is looking forward to yet another one of her mysteries each day.

Sparks!

Paulina joined Sparks yesterday and it seems this is the beginning of something great as she will some day become a Girl Guide and contribute to the community in many postive ways.

"In Sparks, girls are encouraged to try a bit of everything and begin discovering their individual skills, talents and interests. Girls will make lots of new friends, start earning badges and begin to learn all kinds of new skills in a safe and fun atmosphere."

Building Blocks

Paulina likes to build! She developed the love of building ever since she discovered lego which was a long time ago, even as a toddler or even before that with building blocks. She has moved on to building homes for animals. Here is one of her creations which she just built using reeds, leaves, chestnuts, container of acorns, container for water if the squirrel gets thirsty, a puck to play with ...etc..

She just loves to build. She seems to have the capacity to utilize space in the most creative way.

More Reading!

Paulina has been excelling with her reading skills and still loves the read alouds. We are currently reading The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. She really likes to hear the description as it relates to the movie which she has seen and loved. She makes good connections to herself and to other texts and to the movie.

Accolades

Paulina has been lucky to have had so many opportunities to be in a position to win rewards for her efforts. For example, she won a trophy for soccer last summer, a trophy for T-ball this summer, and a medal for the Family Run at the Bread and Honey Festival. This doesn't minimize the value of joy she gets from a sticker as a reward, though. She still loves to get stickers for her efforts and skills learned or manners used. She still likes receiving stickers at home for chores around the house which she does to work toward earning something. She earned a fish tank by completing a number of chores around the house over the course of last winter and by Spring we evaluated the list we kept with all the stickers beside each chore. After a few full sheets of stickers we realized that she had earned the responsibility of having a fish tank/ aquarium.

People in another medium

Here, Paulina, drew people with oil pastels. Oil pastels were her favourite medium which she used in Kindergarten so she continues to enjoy creating images with them. She really likes to draw people! Any kind of people....yellow hair, orange hair, blue hair, green hair...all inclusive! :-)

People Painting

Paulina decided to begin this painting with a red border to give it a sense of a framed look. She is beginning to paint people with more defined features such as the blush on the cheeks of the person in the middle. Paulina really likes people and her interaction with them is very positive. She likes to use her manners and expects others to get along as well. She has many friends with whom she has play dates. There are a number of friends she has on the same street as us with whom she enjoys playing after school. She said that she didn't want to paint anything in the empty space so I assume this is the completed work. She is using the elements of colour, line and space to some extent.

Reading

Paulina has been learning and remembering lots of sight words over the course of this past year and can read words together in sentences now. She has been working on this with lots of books such as the Hello Kitty Reading Program.

I am thrilled to see the progress in her abilities and skills! We think reading is very important - it is the foundation of good academic experiences and real life situations. We encourage our daughter to read in many forms; shared reading, read alouds, independant reading (which she is emerging into), and guided reading so that she may continue to learn and grow.