How about this for a first? California is the first state to add the term “multiracial” to school enrollment forms. The legislation was sponsored by Project RACE and supported by the California State PTA, the California Teacher’s Association, and the Association of California School Administrators. How long do you think it will take other states to follow suit?
It’s not sunny anymore. It’s partly cloudy. I think it’s going to rain.
Simone, our resident meteorologist.
Here is what I want to know. How is it on the one day when we can sleep in a for a little bit the girls get up 45 minutes earlier than usual?
I watched from behind a glass door as Nadia floundered in the pool for a few seconds. I had stepped outside to make a phone call and to give the girls and their swimming teacher some breathing room. Nadia had been waiting on a platform in the water with Simone and another child, while their teacher taught another student.
As I stood in the door, Nadia misjudged where she was on the platform, slipped off and sank to the bottom. A parent and another teacher walked to the edge of the pool and alerted Nadia’s teacher. Nadia surfaced, took in some air and then went under again. Her teacher then pulled her to the surface. It happened very fast. At no point did I feel the need to burst through the door and leap into the pool. As for Nadia, she didn’t cough, cry or even leave the pool. Instead she finished her lesson.
Simone and Nadia have been taking swimming lessons for more than a year because we once lived in Florida and know all to well the dangers of drowning. A few minutes after Nadia slipped under the water, I spoke with the owner of the swimming program. I told him I had watched the scene from behind the door and didn’t come running back inside because I didn’t want to scare Nadia. He thanked me for that. He also assured me he would talk to the teacher and make adjustments in the program to make sure no child would ever slip off a platform.
The other parents, though, didn’t share his sentiment. I read the lips of one of the mothers, who wondered, “Where’s mama?” I am here, watching, I wanted to tell her.
I was cool on the outside but suffocated by worry for the rest of the evening. We’re both fine now. I took her back to her lessons and told her to be sure to stay on the platform. She nodded and jumped in the water like nothing had happened.
Any teacher will tell you reading is the gateway subject.
So, we started reading to Simone when she was an infant. At one point, a young but very clever Simone had us reading a pile of books at night. We obliged her thirst for reading even if she was just trying to stay up a little longer. Ken and I read so many books we were yawning and pretty much putting ourselves to sleep. There were some nights when I know I read to her for an hour.
A couple of years ago I was at a family gathering when I heard a four-year-old read a book. I wondered how his parents had taught him how to read. The boy’s mother, my cousin, said she read to him, of course, but she also told me about two sets of videos she had used: Meet the Sight Words and Leap Frog. Videos? Really?
I found the Meet the Sight Words videos at a store that caters to teachers. I bought one to see how Simone would react. She loved it, and I went back to the store to purchase the other videos. (By the way, they can be purchased as a set.) Then I ordered three Leap Frog videos from Amazon.
Both sets are quite fun, and we played them when Simone asked to see them. Simone now reads a few books to Nadia and me at bedtime. She is a wonderful reading mentor for Nadia, who often pretends she is reading and is asking to watch those same videos that helped her sister learn how to read.
I am surprised by how well Simone deciphers big, complicated words, and I want to see how many books she can read this summer. In the meantime, math is calling her name.
Which learning materials have you used in your home?
