Supriya's Progress Report

Supriya is going great guns on all her fronts as well. She is doing Taekwondo 3 times a week at Lowell Taekwondo and really enjoying it. Yesterday she started a new session of Pool School to work on her technique. She is practically swimming in that she can make her way across the pool and back. But her stroke is really pathetic. That is a shame because she is so strong that she can practically outswim Manisha and me even with that inefficient technique! She is enjoying the class and I can't wait to see her swim with a clean stroke.

Supriya has always been a very good singer, but now she appears to be enjoying it as well! She is an Auditory learner and learns words & tunes very easily. We have all been singing along with the Wee Sing America CD and she knows more songs from there than I do. The new session of our homeschooling family chorus (All Together Now) has started and she knows all the songs. Now she is after me to get her a solo in the chorus!

Her latest accomplishment is reading. For the last couple of months she has been burying herself in books and really teaching herself to read. Her confidence is growing and her sight-recognition is improving rapidly. Just the other day she read me several instruction from the Hullabaloo booklet - from "Stay still when you hear 'Freeze!'" to "More than one player can share the same pad." Today she kept pausing the Pink Panther cartoon DVD so that she could read the billboards and such.

Her reading skills have been developing for a long time. It was not like an electric bulb going on as it is for some kids. She has worked at it and now we can call her a bona-fide reader!

Aseem Turns 5

Aseem turns 5 tomorrow and he has grown a lot over the last couple of months. In July Manisha and Diane were heading down to Rockport, MA for a playdate on the rocky beach. Manisha told Diane that Aseem was not recognizing letters yet. We were not concerned about that because he could recognize numbers. We knew he would do it on his own timetable (like everything else he does!). We were not prepared for how quickly he learned when he did. Some time in late August he started identifying A and then M. Once the ball got rolling it probably became easier and easier. By the end of September he could read and write all letters. He also wrote all our names and our friends' names. He is very tenacious and he has been focusing a lot of his attention on reading and writing letters. Of late he has been playing Starfall (which he calls the "singing letters"). It's just wonderful to watch his abilities grow.

He has been singing a lot as well. He sings along with the Wee Sing America CD, as well as songs from the musicals we watch. And he is right in tune. Just today we sang songs from the America CD with me on the piano. He loves singing the America round, "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Anchors Aweigh". He does not have a big range and does not yet have a good handle on how to use his head-voice. But he sings with gusto and we will take that most gladly.

Aseem has also made big strides in swimming. We joined the Radisson fitness club in January. Supriya started going into the water right away, but it took Aseem many months before he felt comfortable enough to go in. For a few weeks it was just sitting on the steps with his feet in the water. Then another few weeks to go in, holding on to the sides of the pool. And of course he was wearing his padded Superman wetsuit that made him look twice his weight. Then about a month ago came the breakthrough. He went in, let go of the sides and went all the way in. Once he had full trust in the ability of the wetsuit to keep him afloat, he was all over the place. He went across the deep end and checked out the pool thermometer. Then he and Supriya played games in the water. I was thrilled to watch the breakthrough. He was El Magnifico (the indomitable mouse in one of Tom and Jerry cartoons)!

Supriya and Sudoku

The worldwide Sudoku craze has invaded our house as well. Manisha has become addicted to them and now has to do one a day (she does one Evil a day from www.websudoku.com). It intrigued me for a while but I lost interest once I understood the logic of it. I tried to get Supriya interested some time ago but it was completely beyond her. But then a couple of months ago Manisha showed her a 4 by 4 puzzle and Supriya got it (it seems to be another of the many developmental issues - it's meaningless before they are ready and obvious once they are ready. Not much one can do about it!). Then we found many kid-sized puzzles here. So we printed them out and she was able to zip through them all, including the more difficult 4 by 4s. She talked through the logic and it was quite apparent that she understands the process well.

Wee Sing America

We recently bought Wee Sing America CD and it's been going non-stop in the van. I consider it our American History cum music curriculum. It has a lot of fun songs, but 2 songs in particular have caught the fancy of the kids. One is a minor-key round (that sounds very much like that classic English round "Hey, ho, nobody home") that goes, "America, America, land of hope and liberty; Freedom rings from every mountain, from sea to sea." When we get into the van, there is a clamor for "Music, music!" and then "Go to number 14 [the round]". So we sing the round several times. Supriya insists on me singing a different strand from hers, and she holds her part very well. Then we skip a song and jump to #17 which is a very cool song listing the 50 American States (mostly alphabetically). We sing it several times through. By now even I have memorized the 50 names, to the point where I have it running through my head when I am trying to sleep at night!

Aseem also sings along with most of these. His favorite is "Yankee Doodle Boy", the George M. Cohan classic. The CD has Cohan's "You're a Grand Old Flag" as well, so I decided to seize the opportunity and get "Yankee Doodle Dandy" from Netflix. It's a biopic about Cohan (with Jimmy Cagney doing a fabulous job in the lead role, getting the Oscar as a matter of fact!), with some really great music. The kids are enjoying it, watching it daily for the last several days.

I can't recommend both the CD and the movie enough.