• Us
  • I dropped off my laptop for the Windows 10 upgrade, and then I dropped by work to say hi.
  • I picked up my laptop and said hello to my coworkers.
  • I spent a long time trying to figure out proper retained earnings calculations for filing my taxes.
  • We dug through our camping supplies to find the lighter fluid for J-‘s handwarmer. In the process, we discovered a problem with mold in our basement.
• Gross motor
  • A- ran and climbed so much while playing with her friends.
• Fine motor
  • A- voluntarily traced letters with her paintbrush. We also painted lots of paper with orange and yellow paint. I’ll use that to make a hat for Halloween.
• Language
  • A-: “Don’t duck into the kitchen! Come out!” Me: “I love your command of the English language.” A-: “Would you like to try Spanish?”
• Art
  • We painted A-‘s rescue truck cardboard box. Acrylic gave much better coverage than tempera. After watching me mix gray from black and white, A- tried mixing up some pink paint.
• Self-care and independence
  • A- explored the indoor playground by herself. She liked feeding balls into the ball machine, and she figured out how to climb up to the big slide and the high crawlspaces.
  • A- and I talked about being bored and finding ways to challenge ourselves.
  • A- practically skipped into class today. Quite a difference from having to peel her off me last week.
  • A- mildly resisted the idea of school this morning. When I asked her for details, she said that it’s because teachers tell her what to do. I asked her for examples. She said teachers ask her to read after finishing crafts. I asked if it was because she didn’t know how to read yet. She said yes, so I suggested looking at pictures and told her maybe we can learn more about reading. She also said she wanted to sing other songs at circle time, so I coached her on how to ask the teacher if they could sing Wheels on the Bus. A- had lots of questions on the way to school (mostly about woolly mammoths). After a little playtime at the drop-in centre, A- cheerfully went into the classroom and headed to the play kitchen. Maybe we’re slowly getting the hang of things!
  • I contemplated signing up for a co-op preschool program after kindergarten readiness ends, since A- is doing fine and it would be good to keep that going. I like hanging out with A-, though, so not going is okay too. It might be nice to learn how to teach her more deliberately.
  • We went to A-‘s ocularist, who encouraged us to keep trying to get A- to wear her shell.
  • A- got her first library card and her first allowance ($3)!
• Sleep
  • A- was so tired after all that playing that she fell asleep on my lap while waiting for W- to come home.
• Household
  • W- was working on the porch, so A- borrowed the mallet and hammered together tongue-and-groove board offcuts.
• Social
  • J- got a really short haircut. A- told W-, “I don’t know that she’s my big sister now.”
  • I asked A- why she sometimes didn’t participate in activities or answer teachers’ questions. She said it was sometimes not challenging enough. We talked about how it can be good to demonstrate that you can do something so that teachers can give you more interesting challenges.
  • We met up with Popo at McDonald’s, and she treated us to a snack. Then we went to the ROM and looked at dinosaurs.
• Cognition
  • At the family math program, the teacher showed us two buttons and asked the kids to tell her what was different between them. A- said that one had two holes, and the other had four. No one else spoke up, so A- said that one was big and the other was small. After another pause, A- said that one was a circle, and the other was a “four… five… hexagon.”
  • A- asked for yogurt with 1 gram of sugar, so we used the scale.
• Oops
  • I accidentally left A-‘s backpack. We retraced our steps and found it at the cafe, yay!

Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending September 27, 2019
• Weekly review: Week ending September 20, 2019
• Weekly review: Week ending September 13, 2019
• Weekly review: Week ending September 6, 2019
• Weekly review: Week ending August 30, 2019
• 2019-09-30 Emacs news

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