Remember that power struggle that I had with Lucy a few months back? She seems to have grown out of it and handed it down to her little sister.
Emma has graduated the Explode the Code Primers and is onto the Level 1. She was extremely excited about her new books for about a day. Though she is perfectly capable of doing her new book, she seems to come up with every excuse possible not to do it. My favorite is “writing is so hard”.
I have to admit, I’m not sure if I’m being too hard on her or not. She is READING and technically not even in kindergarten yet (she missed the cut off and wouldn’t start until this coming fall). That’s pretty darn good. But on the other hand, she isn’t allowed to just waste time. School time is school time and I want her to be learning… learning anything, not sitting there and pouting or playing “who’s got the prettier hair” with her my little ponies. So in an attempt to avoid another power struggle I told her that she had a choice. She could work in her code book or read to me out loud. Here is exhibit A.
Explode the Code level 1. On the first page, she would read the two sentences and decide which matches the picture. On the second page, she looks at the picture and writes it three times. It could take her 10 minutes to do both pages (as past experience has indicated). OR, it could take her ONE hour to do half of a page.
