Wonders of Email

Are you all familiar with the 3 R's? Reading, writing and arithmetic. This is what we usually focus on when teaching our young kiddos. Well, K is doing pretty good with her reading and not too bad with maths. But writing... we need more work there. The two things we've been working on are:
1. Handwriting
2. Spelling

For handwriting, I have her do copywork like copying nursery rhymes or an informational paragraph from a book. Not only trains her in handwriting skills but also observational skills like when to write capital letters, inserting commas, how to write a question mark, starting sentence on a new line etc.... Initially she would write 2 sentences and tell me her hand was tired. Well, of course it was tired coz' she was pressing down so hard when she was writing. K is the kind of person who is not very meticulous about her work. She likes to finish things off as fast as she can with no thought for producing quality work. So, I have to constantly remind her that she needs to give her best work. I try to make it fun for her like giving her the freedom to choose what she wants to copy. Also, suggested she add some illustration to her work, but so far my suggestion has not been taken up. Guess not so fun for her afterall. Oh well, no matter how she may hate it, I will have to persist on this activity as I'm sure there will be copy work when she starts school i.e. copy from blackboard.

Spelling has been a headache for me. I've tried to encourage her to learn how to spell numbers, days of the week, months of the year etc.... No interest what so ever. If she wants to write something, she will ask me how to spell instead of trying to figure it out herself. I've been working with her on phonics, segmenting sounds and blending sounds. My goal is for her to learn to spell by paying attention to the sounds in the word and not just memorizing the whole word. I don't care if she spells it wrong. Anyway, we were like an airplane that could not take-off or a car engine that would sputter and die. UNTIL... it struck me to create an email account for her. Everybody LOVES to get mail right? Well, not spam lah. She got excited about the idea. I said she would have to reply my mail but I couldn't help her write her messages. Well, these are some of her mails to me. See if you can decipher them:

1hoio mommy i got a mash for you.

2i oasl love you.

3i oas be wiff you.

4i love you and you love me.
5mom you see wat i do.

do you no nas august is my boday and damus boday to .
the fas day is a sasu day and is a hap nun yun

Hahahah. Good effort I say. Can you figure it out? Here is some help:
hoio = hello
mash = message
oas = always
nas = next
boday = birthday
fas day = first day
sasu day = saturday
hap nun yun = happy new year

She absolutely loves checking her mail, except almost no one writes to her at the moment. Anyone want to be her penpal? I wonder what kids her age would write to each other. Well, if you are interested in making a new friend (for yourself or your child), you can reach Karina at karinalsy@gmail.com
I'm sure she would be thrilled to make new friends.