Unintended Results

Today I bagged most of school in favor of practicing for our upcoming end of school show that includes four short plays (written by me--they last approximately 1 minute each) and four songs with special appearances by Cowen on the trumpet, Miriam on the piano, and Emeline on the drum. Since the performance is the 24th and we're performing before that at two rest homes, it has pretty much taken over school.

But then, in the late afternoon, we decided to go for a walk. Miriam likes to take a notebook with her on walks these days. Because she had a notebook, Cowen needed a notebook. After our walk, we were all sitting on the driveway (the grass is too muddy) and Cowen handed me his notebook and showed me a perfect "D" he had written. He said he was writing daffodil. He asked me what came next and I said, "ah." He wrote an "A." Then I said, "fff" and he wrote an "F." We did that for the entire word and he spelled it based entirely on the sounds!!! It was awesome.

Since I praised Cowen to high heaven, Miriam decided she needed to write words. The girl is six, reads at about a fifth grade level, but hates to write. She usually scribbles and then tells me what she meant, or she sweet talks me into writing things for her. Today, though, she wrote lots of spring words like baby, spring, flowers, and rain. All without any prompting from me.

And such is the bliss of the homeschool mom who goes outside for a walk and winds up with an English lesson.