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My husband is the best at this one hands-down. He is amazing when it comes to doing things that Emma loves to do. He will offer to play games with her and let her choose the game, knowing that she may default to Chutes & Ladders for the 5,784th time. Yet he doesn’t complain. It’s something she loves, and that makes it important.
We make an effort to do things that Emma loves to do. We’ll listen to her music with her, singing along if we know the words. We let her choose the bedtime stories so we can read what she enjoys reading. If she has an idea for an activity, we do what we can to make it happen. We try to show her that what she likes is important.
I found a fun way to incorporate one of her loves into our homeschooling this year. Emma really likes the cartoon Word Girl (ahh does my grammar geeky heart good!). She’s learned a bunch of new words from watching the show, and she can even tell you what they mean. Too fun! I thought I’d use this in our reading class, so I made her a Word Girl 2nd Grade Word Power notebook to start the year off.
As we read each chapter in The Best School Year Ever, the first book we read this year, she added a few new ‘big words’ to her Word Girl notebook. She was absolutely thrilled that I had used HER favorite character for something school-related.
I do okay with this area, but I could do better. Instead of suggesting a game or activity each time we have some hang out time, I’m going to try to be more intentional about asking her what SHE would like to do. I want to make sure she knows that the things she loves are important to me too.
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