On Our Learning Journey...

The process to get Morayo to recognize all her letters and now know how to spell and write her name wasn't easy. As a matter of fact, far from it but with time it has gotten better and it is now a lot of fun! In the beginning it was challenging and frustrating but thankfully, it turned into quite a learning experience. It opened my eyes big time to parts of my parenting I had never experienced. There are some things I didn't do right at first but I learned quickly! 

Here's some of the what I did/used...

We did fun hand and body movements to help remember. The photo above shows Mo exhibiting the letters "X", "O", and "Y". We have other fun ones for "K"- We throw our hands and legs and Kick! For "S" we do a squiggly dance. It wasn't hard for me coming up with stuff. 

I mentioned the Leap Frog videos in my previous post (they are excellent and fun!). They also have learning videos from shows they love to watch and are used to. We also use these flash cards. I haven't gotten into all of them yet. So far, just some numbers and all of letters. You can tell it's been through it(package ripped. Lol). I'm getting into Three Letter Words now. She has been really good with her colors and some shapes for what seems like ages now. 

This was EXCELLENT! It helped a big deal. This actually belonged to my nephew Paul and at some point when I was visiting my parents, I found it laying around in the house and swiped it. Lol! Anyhoo.. it's great because of the sound. There were times I was teaching Mo and she would forget a letter and Mr. Turtle would kindly remind us! The pages flap over and focus on the letters for each page it shows. 

This was one of Hubby's gifts to MoMo for Christmas! It's helping a lot with her writing coordination!

This Easel was a gift from Nana & Papa Odesanya! When they asked what she would like for Christmas (certainly I decided for her. Lol), I sent the link from Amazon of this two-sided Crayola Easel to Papa O and it was at our front door a few days before Christmas! The magnetic letters are stored in the attached red bins. The other side is a chalk board. So much fun and learning all in one!

If your kids are like mine, they already wanted to spend hours just watching videos, so I gave them something to watch that they would actually benefit from! There are TOO MANY videos out there! If one doesn't work for you or them, move to the next!

Hubby has a huge white board in his home office and no this is not it. Ha! He has quite some things written on it and papers attached to it. Can't mess with that stuff. Lol. Anyhoo.. it's huge and there was some room on it for us to do some learning. This came in handy in learning how to write her name stage. The different colored markers added some spice to our learning!

Some Important things to keep in mind:

When we first got started, one of my early mistakes was yelling when I got frustrated. NOT GOOD! I caught on quickly though because when she got back from school and I told her "Okay! Time for letters", she would immediately start crying because she associated it with my yelling. 

Their attention span is SHORT! Keep learning time to max 20mins. Trust me, it's not a lot of time when you're doing fun movements. It actually goes by fast.

There were days I focused only on one letter and it just seemed like she couldn't retain that one letter! Argh! Lol.. Don't give up. You'll be surprised how their memory works!

Use rewards. We've done snacks, stickers, little gifts, trips to the park, Chick-Fil-A and ChuckECheese!

Try not to compare kids!(I know! Says the mom that almost lost it when she found out her boss's daughter could spell and write her name. Lol). On a more serious note, kids develop differently and even if a child is a month older than another, you'd be surprised the difference that one month makes. If you must, there MUST be a healthy balance. In my case I knew MoMo was capable and up to it. I'm glad I didn't hold back.

Make it FUN, FUN, and MORE FUN!

Can't think of anything else right now. It's my bedtime. Ha!

I don't want to miss a big opportunity to give a major shout-out to hubby. Every last method I've used and I'm currently using to teach the kids, he bought it ALL! Of course with the exception of swiped Mr. Turtle, the Easel and YouTube. He goes out to the grocery store and he comes back with these DVDs. I get home, there is a package at the door and it has more educational stuff for the kids in it. Some of this stuff he already got when Mo was still a little baby! I'm more hands on and take on his days he skips sometimes because he is late coming home from work but he has most certainly provided ALL the resources. You go Daddy T!

MoMo Girl Making Strides!

I drop off and pick up the kids from school. Normally when I pick them up, I always ask how their day was and what they learned. Demi’s answers ranges from saying good, to repeating what I say, to plain ol’ gibberish. Morayo on the other hand is able to give clear answers and it was always the same response I got EVERYTIME… “I learned my ABC’s”. Now, there really wasn’t an issue with that answer until we began to put letters in front of her at home and she was totally clueless of what they were. I wondered if they were they just singing the ABC song at school or if they were being taught letter recognition. This got pretty frustrating so I requested a meeting with the director at her school to go over details of the daily curriculum beyond what I received every morning via email.

Hubby and I began teaching her at home. We used all sorts of methods from YouTube videos, flashcards, DVDs, to us sitting down with her and using the white board in hubby’s home office. We took turns teaching her. Demi wasn’t so much included because plain and simple, he just wasn’t there yet. It is still a struggle with him but I hope somehow he is retaining something. There was a period where for about a straight month they watched nothing but leap frog DVDs. We totally cut out Dora, Sofia, Mickey Mouse, you name it, they didn’t watch it. When they got back from school in the evenings and during the weekends Leap Frog was on on repeat. They even began to ask for their numbers and letters videos. LOL! I started feeling bad for them after a while. Left to hubby he was going to keep them watching only the educational videos.

With time things began to catch on and MoMo could recognize her letters. I still had my frustrations with the her school and sometime in November, I was having a casual conversation about it with my boss who has a daughter the same age as MoMo but 2 months older. He mentioned his daughter could write her first and last name and had been doing it for WEEKS! He said he wasn’t responsible because he didn’t teach her and neither did his wife. In other words, she learned at school! He even recorded her doing it and showed it to me the next day! I was hot for a couple of reasons! For one, we were on a paid waiting list at that particular school and had heard nothing back almost after a year (btw both her and Demi are now at that school as of this year!!). For two, I got even more annoyed with her present school.

Long story short, before Christmas day last year, MoMo was able to spell and write her first name. We are now working on her last name. I recorded a video of her spelling her name out as she wrote it on the white board and I showed it to my boss who made jokes about what methods I used to get her to learn that quickly but was nonetheless very impressed.

 It took work on our part. It makes me so happy when she colors a picture now and she is able to write her name on the paper! She will be proudly signing her name on every birthday/anniversary/Valentine card that goes out to grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins this year!

So proud of our baby girl!

A Christmas Tree she colored during the holiday with her name written on it. Absolutely love her coloring creativity might I add!

Ringing In The New Year

Already 13 days into the new year. I will do better, I will be better...

On New Year’s Eve, we loaded up the car, kids and all and drove three hours and thirty minutes to Kansas City, MO. We stayed with our old college buddies turned friends turned family. I met Vicky and Ona my freshman year in college. Vicky and I connected instantly and that friendship has remained constant several YEARS later. Y’all it literally has been over a decade! Hubby went to the same undergraduate school as I did, so he knew them even before I got to the school. After years in Atlanta, Ona moved with a new job to Kansas City a few months ago and was joined by Vicky and their two sweet boys shortly after.

A few weeks before Thanksgiving last year, we were more than delighted to host them here in NWA! We all had a good time and promised we would visit next. Well next turned out to be New Year’s! If there is one thing I know Vicky is undoubtedly good at, it would be entertaining and trust her not to disappoint! Matter of fact, I was unashamedly excited about all what I was going to eat during our stay and oh my were my pallets satisfied. LOL! From making special dishes for every meal, to making sure she made one of my favorite’s, fried yams and peppered sauce meant a lot to me!

The kids weren’t left out on all the fun, they had a blast! Josh their first son is Morayo’s age so they played a lot together and of course Demi joined in. Timi their second who is 6 months old got a lot of TLC from Morayo. Even though she played with the boys, she somehow found a lot of time to be with him. It was really sweet watching how concerned she was about him and her just wanting to hold him.

We made new friends while we were there too! Their neighbors, a Liberian couple Cephas and Stephany were so sweet our entire stay. They came over the first night we got there and all 6 of us (kids sleeping) actually prayed together into the New Year! Talking to them felt like I had known them for a long time. Stephany brought over some yummy delicious dishes for dinner on New Year’s Day and also made lunch for us on Sunday before we left. They were really, really gracious.

Unfortunately, all the fun had to come to an end. 

I did it a little different this year from what I’ve been used to for a very long time but I wouldn’t change it for anything. My New Year’s celebration was simply memorable.

Kiddo FUN!

New year's Meal! Yummy Delicious!

Squeezed in some arcade fun for the kids!

With the Cokers