Dormant Faith

I finished the other blog and should get to bed now, but I want to record this moment from today before I forget.

Faith and I went to see my best friend and her daughter (who is Faith's best friend) and newborn son today. It's about a 40 minutes drive from our house to hers.

On the way there, Faith wanted to spell. She was spelling words for about 20 minutes. I would sound them out for her and then did rhyming words so she can see the pattern. She is great with color and number patterns and I was interested to see if she would catch on as quickly with word pattern.

We started out with cat. Then bat, hat, mat, sat. We did the same thing with dog and then bog, fog, log. And next to pen, hen, etc.... She just kept going. Then she wanted to spell bridge because we were passing under one. We haven't worked with blends and digraphs yet. I had to break it down a lot for her. We also haven't done the long vowel sounds either. Even though it was a tough word, she wanted to take a stab at it. She did really well. Her word patterns are not as quick as her color and number pattern, but we just started doing this recently. I'm sure she pick it up quick, she always does.

After 20 minutes and finally being bored with that, we started talking about the landscape of our drive. We were noticing how lush, me explaining to her, another word for green, it was. I asked her why she thought it was so green right now. We do a lot of gardening so she knows that it requires dirt, sun, and water for plants to grow. We talked about the spring weather lately and how that is optimal for the lush landscape. The I mention the word dormant because she is loves trees that don't have any leaves. I explained to her that when a tree is dormant, it means that the tree is asleep for the winter. I didn't get any response from her. I thought that was strange so I called her name...no answer...so I called again...she giggled and then said, "I was pretending to be dormant." Of course, big smile across my face. The girl took a brand new concept and used it with her own flair to show me she gets it.

After that we turned on some music and the song Forget you by Cee Lo Green was on. Once again, she couldn't just sing the words as is, she came up with, "I see you driving around town with the Faith I love and I said, can I get a ride." Such a funny kid! Love her!

She loves big trucks. I saw a cool one that carries liquid and it had a tube that looks like a drinking straw wrapped around it and I asked her what she thought was in the container. She initially said air and then I asked her what else it could be in there. I told her to look at the tube that was wrapped around and asked her what it reminded her of. She thought it look like a hose, so she said water could be in there. Then we had a discussion about liquid and air (I didn't use the word gas). We talked about all our senses with liquid and air. It was an interesting conversation. Before I knew it, we were almost to our destination.

That little girl never cease to amaze me. I often forget she is only 3 1/2. I looking forward to our many future conversations.

Masters in Education with emphasis on Gifted Education

It's been a long time since I've blogged. I always have the intention of doing it, but my follow through doesn't always follow through. Once again, I should be sleeping, but instead I'm sitting here typing in hopes of getting my thoughts down and quieting my mind to go to bed. I haven't had the opportunity to follow any of my blogs and decided to tonight because I tried going down with Faith at midnight, but was unsuccessful. I took some Excedrin Migrane around 7 to get rid of my Migrane and forgot how much caffine is in those pills. My heart was racing and that nervous shaky feeling kept my exhausted body up. I logged on Raising Smart Girls to and clicked on "Gifted Families" and found Life Among the Gifted. I was reading Melanie's bio and all of a sudden got the urge to look up masters program in education with the emphasis on gifted education.

When I quit teaching and decided to stay home with Faith, I always knew I wanted to go back for my masters one day. I just didn't know what I wanted my emphasis to be on. Now, it feels so clear that I should go back to learn more about Gifted Education. I remember only briefly reading and discussing gifted education when I got my credential. Just like most of the teaching population, our focus as teacher, was to help the struggling students and move them up. Why would the gifted students, need any support, they are already "smart!" Now having a gifted kid myself, I definitely understand that not only do the gifted child needs the support, but the whole family needs the support.

I would love to learn more on how the gifted minds work. Along the way, I hope to pick up strategies and shine some light on how my highly sensitive faith.

I requested some information from some online programs. We'll see what becomes of this quest. I still need to talk to husband about it.