Homework Project

Joey has a homework project we are working on- a poster about himself. So I printed out some good pictures of him in various places and with various people, places he likes to go and things he likes to do, his toys and his brother and all that kind of stuff, all our "greatest hits". Then we went through them and I told him to pick out his "favorites" for his project, in which he would talk about himself with his friends. (He's going to have to get up in front of the class and present this!) It was really interesting what photos he picked out, and what he had to say about them. I didn't limit him at all- he kept picking, we kept talking and writing. I had him write sentences about the pictures on his usual paper, and we'll cut the whole mess out and glue it to the posterboard in the morning.

So what did he pick?

We were required to have him include "I was born April 10" and "I live in Fredericksburg." To accompany these two very boring sentences, he selected a picture of his Grandma holding him in the hospital. Granted, I gave him a limited selection to go with these, but they were an array of very early pictures of him. Did he pick the one of mom holding him? No. Grandma. It's a lovely picture, though.

Then from the throng he selected a picture at the beach. I love the pic, though I would have picked the one with him looking out over the ocean. The one he picked is from the fall. Probably remember it better. Anyway, he wrote that he liked to go to the beach "because I like the water and the sand." All by himself.

He picked himself playing the snow, riding his bike, and playing in the shark mouth at DinosaurLand. He also wanted the pic from Halloween. The sentence I was trying for was "I live with my mom, my dad, and my brother, Andy." What I got was "I live mom, my brother Andy, and Joey Little Bear, and T-Rex." Poor JoeyAndyDad. But this was the photo he wanted- and notice Dad is there. I think he got a little excited and forgot words in the sentence. I thought I'd toss in a picture of me when we glued things together tomorrow.


All weekend he's been saying he doesn't like cats, and been shying away from our cats. i know he has a love-fear relationship with dogs, but he's usually OK with our cats. After all, they've been here longer than he has. But I was surprised when he pulled out a picture of the cats (especially since I didn't mean for it to be in the stack of pictures. Surprise!) His sentence? "I have 2 cats at home. They are Luna and Ellora." I had to remind him of the names, but he could pick them out in the picture. Later, when Ellora came in to remind me she needed dinner, he triumphantly chimed, "Hello, Ellora!" I think she was confused, since he's been stand-off-ish, and suddenly he wanted to touch her. She's not into being touched.


And speaking of Grandma, he wanted her to have a sentence all her own. With no help at all (and not even facing me... he starting writing with his back to me): "My Grandma is Grandmother Bear. I love her." A voluntary, spontaneous, and appropriate pronoun. Wow.