Jolly phonics?

[kindertime]

Not sure what was wrong with me this morning. I apologise for being snarky.

You write in another thread that you bring the girls to the grocery store from time to time. That's great. Can you make that a learning opportunity? There are a million letters and words and numbers in a store.

If you make a list, include her in the planning. Also, collect labels and carton pictures of the foods you intend to buy. Bring them to the store and when you are in the specific aisle where the food is, give her the label. So, for example, in the soup aisle, give her the label from the can of tomato soup. She has to find the exact one to match the label. Or, for the cereal, cut out just the word Cheerios from an old box, and have her find that exact kind. Depending on her interest and your trust that she won't pull everything off the shelf, of course! I have always wanted to do this but can't bring 6 dck to the store to try it.

[3rdtimesacharm]

I think what you are doing for her is great!! I know exactly how you feel. My son had always been obsessed with letters and numbers and could read Gr 3 readers by the time he started jk at age 4yrs. We have video of him at his 3rd birthday party reading his cards word for word and not caring much for the gift itself. When he started jk it seemed to be more of a deterrent as he went to French Immersion and the teachers didn't know what to do with him. I don't think it's at all a bad thing to encourage what interests your child and I feel for you knowing you must be alone a lot of the time in this common ability your daughter has amongst her peers. My son is otherwise socialized just fine and seems to be fitting in more as school progressed.
Never heard of that phonics program but it sounds great. The letter sounds are key to cracking the language. My son still loves all the letter/number/counting videos for kids on YouTube.

[Lee-Bee]

Not sure what was wrong with me this morning. I apologise for being snarky.

You write in another thread that you bring the girls to the grocery store from time to time. That's great. Can you make that a learning opportunity? There are a million letters and words and numbers in a store.

If you make a list, include her in the planning. Also, collect labels and carton pictures of the foods you intend to buy. Bring them to the store and when you are in the specific aisle where the food is, give her the label. So, for example, in the soup aisle, give her the label from the can of tomato soup. She has to find the exact one to match the label. Or, for the cereal, cut out just the word Cheerios from an old box, and have her find that exact kind. Depending on her interest and your trust that she won't pull everything off the shelf, of course! I have always wanted to do this but can't bring 6 dck to the store to try it.

Oh wow! that sounds like a great outing! I will try that with just my daughter on Fridays when I have just her. She would love looking for specific labels. I don`t have much trust in her (hence why trying with just her). As of now I have a pretty strict she goes in cart and gets buckled in policy as she abuses the ability to be out of the cart and makes the trip sooooo much longer. She is also prone to removing cans (not to remove them) but to count them, line them up and replace them in precise order (soooo time consuming). When my husband comes shopping with us (not that often) we allow her out and he lets her do her thing while I shop. When it is just her and I she knows not to expect such fun. BUT, she is older now and she would LOVE being in charge of finding items and adding a certain number from her list etc. Would a good, meaningful challenge for her.

Thanks for the idea.

As for your comment this morning, no worries. It was pretty much precisely what I would be thinking and saying myself. This child has flipped my way of thinking about young children completely upside down. She just NEEDS to be doing things that kids this age should not usually be subjected to (learning letter sounds etc). I do my best to keep it all fun and games and very short mini lessons. She gets bored so easily though so I constantly need to find new content and new delivery styles. She got bored with calendar time (which I had to start because she was obsessed with days of the week). She got bored with adding a number a day so now I do it once a week. I mix up all 7 numbers and leave her to put them in order in the correct squares.

After mastering the upper case letters I decided to buy the lowercase magnets. She knew 3/4 of them before I had told her the names of them. She saw them on the leap frog show (we assume that is where she learned them). She knows the letters out of order, upside down and in different fonts. She LOVES the fact that she can turn and "H" to make an "I" or the W to a M and n to u. She is obsessed with time. So we had to get her a digital clock now everything is at 7:45 it is lights out, at 7:48 dad leaves the room etc. But she is now fascinated that the digital clocks makes numbers look a bit different so the 7 looks like an upside L and the 3 looks like a backwards E and the 4 is an upside down h.

Anyways. As smart as she is seemingly becoming and as fast as she learns. She struggles with 'life' not bowing down to her. She has emotions bigger than anyone can handle (let alone a 2yr old) and she is fiercely determined, strong willed and loud. So...I spend all my energy and time trying to not only keep her engaged and feeding her need for knowledge but to try and prevent melt downs, lesson frustrations and trying to teach her the essential survival skills she will need for school. I don't want to ignore her need/want to learn but I desperately need to figure out how to keep her social, happy with others and functional in group settings. I worry about her become socially isolated because she is just so different.

Sorry for the ramble! I am feeling a little bit more lost each day as she advances faster than I am ready for.