You know you're a good teacher when...

This year I'm doing a home preschool with Libby to test out the whole homeschooling thing. (we're using the Sonlight curriculum and I love it) So far it's been a rousing success. Mostly. Each day Libby has one or two worksheets to complete. These worksheets are the highlight of her day. She asks for them repeatedly throughout the day and never wants to stop with the assigned number. A couple weeks ago one of Libby's worksheets was about rhyming. In the center there was a picture of snow, and around the snow where pictures of a TOW truck, a baby, a boy BLOWing, toys, a man MOWing, and a cat. The object was to identify the rhyming words, color the corresponding picture, and X out the others. So I explained to her that rhyming meant the words sounded the same. Then I asked "Does snow rhyme with blow?" "Yes!" Good! I thought. She gets it. Next - "does snow rhyme with toys?" "Yes!" "No", I said, "snow does not rhyme with toys. Listen to the words" "but they both have "o's" she said. "Well, yes, they do, but it's not the letters that matter, it's the sound of the words". Needless to say, she just didn't get it.

Later that night I revisited the subject, and we were finding rhyming words for "fan". "Man, tan, whatelse rhymes with fan?" I asked. "Light!" she said. "No, fan does not rhyme with light" "Yes it does, look!" and she pointed to our ceiling fan, "the fan has lights on it. It rhymes." I decided to just leave it for a while.

Today there was another rhyming worksheet. Things that rhyme with "PAIL". There was a horse, a nail, a cat, a man in jail, a shovel, and a dog's tail. I was worried she would insist that the shovel rhymed with pail, but no need. She completed the sheet with flying colors. Then tonight she and Jaina were playing with playdough. Libby came running to me with a playdough mold and said "Look! A rhyming word!" I looked and indeed, the mold was for a nail. I said "yes, it's a nail, and what does nail rhyme with?" "BUCKET!"