Not-so-easy ‘easy’ readers
My son is six. He needs to read. Look for a book! It must be short. It must be simple. It is fun to read. We read every day.
(See?! Short little sentences are permeating my brain!)
Grade 1 means nightly reading homework, and it’s the very first homework we’ve had in our household so it’s exciting. Well, it was exciting for the first few nights. Now I twitch a little at the thought of listening to our son sloooooowly re-read one of the very, very simple books called “easy-readers.”
Don’t get me wrong — it’s awesome to hear him read. It’s like a miracle, sitting on the couch and listening to the speech therapy kid who communicated exclusively in sign language for nearly three years of his life reading me an entire book!
All throughout Primary, I was in awe every time he learned to read and write a new word (The! At! In! Me! Go!) and it almost felt like witchcraft. He’s an even better reader now, and that means instead of pointing to words on a list, he’s settling in to read a book from cover to cover. Mind-blowing.
It’s just that … well … the books are terrible …
I get it. The books have to be simple at this age. It’s really just the parent who suffers.
There aren’t a lot of plots that can be explained using single-syllable words — three or four words to a page — and, as a result, the stories suck. They also don’t always make sense. We have an easy-reader Cat in the Hat book where Nick and Sally mix jam and ham to make disgusting purple cupcakes. It bothers me as a writer and a baker.
We get three easy-readers sent home in a baggie every Tuesday and they’re read in approximately 52 seconds. Then it’s time to find more to fill those nightly reading sessions, and 95 per cent of the books on our shelves do not quality as easy-readers.
We go to the library weekly, but easy-readers are confusing to pick out because each publisher has a different system for categorizing them. I can pick up a Level 2 book that’s full of words he knows, and pick up a Level 1 book where he’ll struggle over every second word. Some of them are five pages long and too easy, and others are 25 pages long with tiny text and lots of bizarre words he won’t know.
I don’t want to get him something so easy it won’t be helpful — or he’ll just memorize it and that’s not reading — but I also don’t want to frustrate him. So if you see me standing for ages in front of a shelf of “easy-readers” in the bookstore or the library, that’s what I’m doing: reading dozens of the most boring books in the world, determining if I should bring them home.
I couldn’t handle another Mercer Mayer reading last week and decided to try something different. I flipped open the laptop, bumped the font up to 48 and typed a simple sentence on the screen for my son to read. He loved it and I continued, line by line, until he’d read aloud the full story (which can never see the light of day since it’s about the Berenstain Bears getting a pet frog and I don’t want to get sued.)
We’ve been playing around with writing our own easy-readers ever since, and he’s loved the chance to type them out himself on the computer. They make me laugh (“I want to be 10. I love my Grade 6 class.”) and he’s practicing reading and writing, so I’m calling it a win.
The only trouble is how I’m going to record them in his reading journal — “The Unpublished Works of a Mom Sick of Easy-Readers”?
xo
DIY upgrade for outdoor house numbers
It’s funny how you can live with so many small details about your house just because they aren’t offensive to the eye, and then suddenly you can’t stand them anymore.
I was never crazy about the black and white plastic plaque hanging on the front of our house, but it wasn’t that bad. Sure, I’d twitch a little bit every time I noticed the 2 was ever-so-slightly leaning to the left. But overall, it could have been much worse. So I left it alone.
I was cruising Pinterest one day looking for front porch inspiration and I saw a house number plaque so beautiful it stopped me mid-scroll. It was a set of modern, brushed nickel numbers attached to a background of stained wood. Completely simple and yet totally perfect.
I investigated our dingy plastic plaque and decided it would be easy to remove and I could reuse the same screw holes — drilling holes into the siding isn’t something I want to tackle. So I made a trip to the home improvement store and started looking at the number options.
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
How to make a too-big shirt fit perfectly
Once you’ve trimmed the sides of the shirt and chopped the sleeves, it’s just a matter of putting the whole thing back together again.
(Pssst: If you’ve never attached a sleeve before, MellySews has a great tutorial on sewing T-shirts.)
When I was cutting down the original sleeve, I made it a little puffed sleeve because YAY PUFFED SLEEVES!
I LOVE my new Wear Your Label shirt — the first of many, I’m sure. (I also want “Anxious but Courageous”) I also love that I was able to take advantage of a sweet online sale by buying a too-large size and cutting it down to fit me exactly.
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| OK, mine are only a slight puff. But still. |
For me, Monat wasn’t a miracle … but here’s why I don’t regret trying it
I’ve had a couple of people ask how I liked the Monat hair system I tried back in July, and I must admit — I have avoided writing this post.
I was dreading the point when I had to admit that it didn’t do anything for me.
Let’s start with the basics: cost.
Everyone who’s interested in Monat has inklings that it’s going to be kinda pricey, and it is. One hundred and twenty nine dollars plus tax for the Renew shampoo, Restore leave-in conditioner, and Replenish masque. (It’s $110 for VIP customers.)
Now, I didn’t really care for the idea of a mask (sorry, “masque”) but it’s one of those deals where you feel like a sucker if you order individual products. It’s just like how at McDonalds it’s cheaper to get a combo than it is to buy items separately. (I apologize, Monat, for lowering your fancy brand to this example.)
Yes, it was painful to spend more than $100 on THREE HAIR PRODUCTS. I normally spend about $5 on a big bottle of Pantene or Herbal Esssences or whatever the drugstore happens to have on sale that week. I’m not picky, and no, my hair is not crap because I use cheap shampoo and conditionner thankyouverymuch.
So the products arrived, and they really were beautiful. I was excited to start using them and get that to-die-for Monat hair everyone on social media is always raving about.
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I didn’t notice any amazing results after the first wash, but I figured that was normal — a detox period, my rep told me, and that makes sense.
I accidentally overdid it by using the masque AND the leave-in conditioner on the same night and my hair was greasy, but that was my fault.
I kept using it, week after week, and still not really seeing ANY difference. My hair wasn’t shinier or softer or smoother or any of the things it was supposed to be.
Then the shampoo bottle was empty and I still had a whack of the conditioner and masque leftover. And I wasn’t sold.
I went back to using my regular cheap-o shampoo, with the Monat leave-in conditioner afterwards, and my hair didn’t seem to notice or care. That’s what I’m still doing.
The only noticeable difference is that now, when I get out of the shower and towel-dry my hair a little before applying the Monat leave-in conditioner, my hair is feels more in need of the conditioner. When I was using the Monat shampoo, it did feel softer and less parched during that towelling-off before grabbing the leave-in conditioner. So yes, when my hair was wet, I could feel a difference.
For me, Monat wasn’t a miracle. If I had bought it at a store, yeah, I’d definitely be annoyed that I spent more than a hundred dollars on something that didn’t really do what it promised. But I’m not annoyed at all, and here’s why:
I bought it from a real person.
It’s important to support small businesses, and yes, these businesses count. The ones where you have parties and online parties. The ones where you maybe pay a little bit more than something is REALLY worth, to be honest, but you do it because you’re helping a friend reach their next level or get their bonus or make their team leader proud.
In the same way that these friends support *my* business by clicking on my blogs and commenting on my articles, I can support them by flipping through their e-catalogues and finding something to buy.
I have hosted Pampered Chef parties and Jamberry parties and spent an ungodly amount of money. I have attended Stella & Dot parties and Younique parties and Tupperware parties and bought things I possibly have probably gotten for less money somewhere else. That isn’t the point.
The point is that I’d rather give my friend/neighbour/kid’s friend’s mom a cut of my purchase, rather than a big box store who couldn’t care less what shampoo I’m buying.
Monat wasn’t a miracle for me, but it seems to be for a lot of other people. If it had been a miracle — giving me unbelievably smooth, soft hair — you can bet I would have been signing up as as VIP and getting a regular shampoo order. It would have been worth it, and I would have felt good about regularly supporting my friend’s venture.
We all have friends who work so hard on these small businesses. They deserve for us to give their products a chance.
It doesn’t mean you have to buy something from them every single month, but it means you need to at least try.
Eight kids’ fads I just don’t understand
There are plenty of times when I really remember what it was like to be a kid and feel connected to my son and daughter. Wrapping a fruit roll-up around your index finger and then chewing it off? Heck yes! Intertwining your feet with a friend’s feet on the swings? Totally did that — although can’t remember why it’s a thing.
But there are also moments when they’re into something I can’t — for the life of me — understand. I could go on all day, but here are eight kiddie fads that drive me crazy.
1. Shopkins
Why are you so obsessed with this hideously expensive pieces of molded plastic? They are this generation’s Polly Pocket: too small to be any good and far too easy to lose. I understand that you have “shops” to set them up in, and little tiny shopping carts to load them into. And then they came out with a series of strange dolls that are supposed to … what, buy the weird little doughnut? Eat it? Then that doughnut should have a terrified little face, not a cheerful winky one. #cannibalism
(I may not “get it,” but our daughter is getting a lot of these little guys for Christmas. Sigh.)
2. Mashems
Speaking of a waste of money, let’s talk about Mashems. Why do we have to pay $5 for a squishy little figurine of Rubble or Ariel or Nemo? These pieces of crap would have come out of a gumball prize machine back in the ’90s. What is the appeal of squishing them in your hands? They get all grubby and the details get ripped off and sometimes you smoosh them so tightly that they burst. What’s in them to make them squishy, anyway? Because I have had to wipe that mystery liquid off my daughter’s face several times.
3. Ooshies
These are a recent discovery, and — from what I can tell — they’re pretty much just Mashems with a hole in their butts for a pencil. You get four for 10 bucks and there are Ninja Turtles and DC Comics superheroes. Who is buying these for their children and letting them take them to school?! I’m pretty sure elementary school teachers don’t want their students playing with TOYS on their PENCILS when they’re trying to work!
Continue reading in my weekly parenting column, The Mom Scene …
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Heather's Handmade Life 