Monthly Archives: June 2008

“Th” versus “d” and “f”

In past years, Peter has been replacing the “th” sound with the “d” or “f” sound. “That” was “dat,” and “Bethany” was “Befany.” I worked on teaching him the correct pronunciation, and he was finally able to make the “th” sound.

During a reading lesson where he was introduced to the word “the,” he finally understood and is now able to make the “th” sound on a regular basis. And boy was he proud to be able to do it after so much hard work!

Unfortunately, that was not the end of this learning process. Now he is replacing “d” sounds with “th” sounds. For example, instead of saying, “the dog,” he will say “the thog.”

I am working to help him understand that “dog” and “the” have different sounds, and he is always able to repeat it correctly after hearing me say it. I believe his problem is that, since he is not reading well yet, he does not know which words have a “d” sound and which have a “th” sound. To him, he learned a new sound and now has to replace all of what he used to pronounce with a “d” sound and replace it with a “th” sound.

It is just going to take time for him to learn the difference, and hopefully it will work itself out as he learns more and more words. Meanwhile, I will be patient and gently correct him. And I might do a few lessons focusing on “d” and “th” words. What do you think? Will it work itself out? Do you have a suggestion for dealing with this letter confusion?

Over-Eggsaggerated Eggsact Eggsplanation

I have noticed recently that our family was suddenly eating more eggs during breakfast than we used to. I was not sure what the eggsact eggsplanation for this was, but I thought maybe our kids had a bigger appetite than they used to. Yesterday while scrambling eggs, I found out the (almost) eggsact reason.

Here are the eggsact details. While cracking eggs to scramble, I emptied the egg carton and had to go into a new one. I was quite surprised by the difference in size between the eggs from the different cartons. Both were size large eggs, but one was quite a bit larger than the other. See the pictures below to see eggsactly how much bigger.

Go ahead….scroll down and look. I’ll wait. I’m not eggsactly busy right now and need time to think about the eggsact details anyway.

Did you go look? Eggsellent!

The problem is that I know the larger egg came from Wal-Mart, but I am not sure eggsactly where the smaller egg came from. It was a Stop & Shop carton, but I had refilled it with eggs that did not come out of the carton, so I am not eggsactly sure where not to buy eggs. Fortunately, I do know eggsactly where to get an eggsellent deal on eggs, both in price and in size. And that is the part I wanted to eggsplain anyway.

Now, if you happen to be wondering how eggsactly I emptied a carton of eggs and then had an egg from the old carton to compare with one from the new carton, I will have to eggsplain to you how I crack eggs. I usually hit one egg against the other, which means that I had to hit an egg from the old carton against an egg from the new carton. Just for clarification, I should eggsplain to you that when I get to the last egg, I either hit it against another egg and put the other egg back in the carton, or hit it on the table.

Make sense? If you still are not eggsactly sure, read someone else’s eggsplaination. This is actually eggsplaining how to play a game with hard boiled eggs (which actually sounded kind of fun) that is a similar concept because only one egg breaks. I am not sure eggsactly why this is so. I probably could guess, but that would not be an eggsact reason, because I would be in danger of over or under eggsaggerating.

So, now that you have an eggsplanation of why I should continue to buy eggs at Wal-Mart rather than going to whatever other store I should never buy eggs from again, you can decide for yourself whether my eggsplanation was over-eggsaggerated or eggsellent. I vote for the second option, because it gives more eggsact details and gives a better overview of…….oh……okay. I guess I have eggsplained enough. 🙂

eggs.jpg eggs-2.jpg

Pet Pine Cones

The other morning while at a park, Anna brought me a pine cone and said, “My friend Hannah told me that when a pine cone is closed like this, it is going to rain.” I looked around at the sunshine and white puffy clouds and said, “Well, I don’t think it’s going to rain.” She did not argue and went to play some more.

Within ten minutes, the clouds had turned grey and the sky was dark. Anna so conveniently happened to be next to me on the bench, holding another tightly closed pine cone. She said, “It looks rainy now.” I couldn’t do anything but respond with, “Yes, it does, doesn’t it?”

Within a few minutes the sun was shining brightly again, but because I was curious, I told her she could bring the pine cones home with us. I wanted to watch them to see if they opened up later.

We got home dry, but around mid-afternoon, we had a short 10 minute shower with the sun shining the whole time. (Don’t you love sunny showers?). And by early evening, the pine cone was beginning to open again.

Still extremely curious, I did a little research and discovered that, even when pine cones are no longer receiving nutrition from the tree, they still have the capability of closing on humid days. This protects the seeds and allows the pine cone to hold onto the seeds until a dryer day when the wind is more able to pick them up and carry them to a safe place to grow. So, there you have it. Your science lesson for today.

Here are a few interesting things I learned about pine cones while researching:

By the way, Anna has been taking care of her pine cones like little pets, and they did open up completely over the next day or two. They are now sitting (still open) on our deck, and for some reason they are still open even though it rained today. Too bad I already admitted to Anna that she was right. I might have a case now:) Just teasing. I mean, after all, she has the internet to back her up, so she has to be right. Right?

It’s Hot in New England!!

I am afraid the Tennessee weather followed Luke and me to Rhode Island! It is actually hot here in New England! I checked the weather periodically today, and it got up to 100 degrees! If you are not familiar with the temperature in New England, average temperature for this time of year is about 78 degrees (according to weather.com) and the record high (since 1975) for Rhode Island any time of year is 104. And this is only June! If you are curious to know what the record high is in your state, check out infoplease.

We got a new air conditioner on Saturday and just got around to putting it in today. After Luke got home, I went on a quick trip to Home Depot to get the necessary stuff to install the AC unit. While there, someone mentioned that Wal-Mart was completely out of air conditioners. So, out of curiosity, I took notice of other people’s carts as I left the store. On my way out, I counted 13 air conditioners in the carts of other shoppers (sometimes 2 or 3 in one cart!) and others standing at the (very large) display of AC units at the front of the store, still deciding which one to get!! That is a lot of air conditioners!!!

Now, our new air conditioner is running downstairs while the old one runs upstairs, and we are enjoying the coolness of them both! Ah…..relief. By the way, new air conditioners do not smell as nice as new clothes or books (or new houses, for that matter).

Hope you’re all staying cool!