The Weekly Review: Week Eighteen

Great Blog Posts this Week

• Amy at Amalah.com shares an anecdote about her boys. I loved the entire story. Perhaps I loved it because our household has also been through a Wonder Pets stage. Or maybe because it was such a wonderful example of imaginative, creative play. Anyway, check it out and enjoy.
• WaldenMommyandFamily is another blog written by a mother with a young child with apraxia. She wrote a post this week about being an advocate for your child and using your voice to speak up for them when they cannot.

Website of the Week:

I don't remember how we stumbled across the Alphablocks website, but my children love it. Michael and Ava spent at least an hour the first time exploring it. I sat down with them becuase it was really that engaging. The characters are little alphabet blocks and the videos are all about phonics, but truly entertaining for both adults and children at the same time. After playing some of the games, I found that Michael was spelling words on his own. He already knew the sound/letter correspondences, but was not yet trying to make words. After playing on this site for an hour he can find the first sound in a word, the last sound in a word, and often guess the vowel in the middle. He's also picking out blends with some help. Wonderful site. Check it out.

The Weekly Michael

A couple of days ago, when I went to get Michael from his room in the morning he told me the following story:

"I slept with some friendly ghosts. They are little. They are a mama and papa ghost. I let them sleep on my pillow because they were sad because their children died. The ghosts are following me because they like me because I am nice to them. They want me to read this book to them. They are sitting right next to me."

And then he picked up a little book off his nightstand and plopped down on the floor and read it to the ghosts. All day long he mentioned his ghosts and how they were with him doing various activities.

Then I never heard about them again. Strange. Perhaps he had a really vivid dream about ghosts or something. It was cute though.

Ava this Week:

Wow! Ava is really, really in the midst of Mama Stage 2. This time she's more articulate, louder, and a better performer. She's also more resistant to change. Sigh. I will perservere. We will be patient. This too shall pass.