Our Little Lois Lane

Let me begin by stating my daughter is brilliant. Her comprehension of math concepts blows me away; I wish I had half of her number sense. She is becoming such a fluent reader that it is actually fun to listen to the story--not just fun because she is reading. Even though she will be the youngest in her class, we are confident she will do well in first grade.

But...I'm in education. I'm realistic. There has been one little thing that has been causing me stress: writing. Issa can form a sentence that will blow your socks off. We're talking long, complex sentences with phrases and adjectives. Her spelling is spot-on phonetic, and she's becoming a better "real" speller. It's the handwriting! We're talking a mix of capitals and lower case that may or may not be on the line. She can do very well; she just often doesn't. It wasn't stressed at her old school, and I walk that fine line of pushing her to do what I know she can and not wanting to make her hate writing. It's in these moments that I wish I was not in education; I would probably stress less.

So...I've been encouraging more writing. You want a white board? Awesome! How about some new lined paper? Cool! Sunday, we read The Diary of a Worm, and when we were out running errands yesterday she announced she would like to keep a diary. Fantabulous! We made a deal that I would buy her a journal if she promised to practice using little letters in it. I had no idea what I had just bargained for. Enter our little Lois Lane:

This is how she walked about the house yesterday. Pencil in her hair, journal in hand, writing down everything. I wasn't out of the shower yet this morning before she was asking me for the date and writing in her diary. But...she's using little letters, and this is a good thing.