Smart cookie

Yes this is totally one of those brag on my kids post. :-)

Alee has been working on behavior with an incentive base system... In other words, if she behaves well, she earns something. (It's slightly backwards because she actually loses something she doesn't yet have but whatever... Close enough!)

This idea was inspired by mom.

Alee starts off the day with the prospect of getting 10 m&m's at lunch. When she misbehaves she loses one. She usually gets about seven average. A few days ago she got all ten. This Friday she went down to her lowest yet-five.

She likes to report to Rob at night how many she got at lunch that day. Sometimes she reports with phrases like, "I lost my thumb because I ran away in the store." Or "I got six m&m's because I was bad a lot."

Two Sundays ago I had left a box of honey buns on the table as a treat for the kids that they could help themselves to-they know only one each. Alee came to me as I was about to get up and get ready for church and reported:

Me and the twins already had our honey buns. There are this many left [she held up three fingers] . These are for Seth and Carolyn [she grabbed two of those three fingers with her other hand]. Then there'll just be one left.


She's three. She essentially did what my older kids do at school called math stories. Wow. (Mom said, I hope you let her have that one after that!) :-)
I think she did split it with someone.


She uses her fingers a lot to figure out numbers - she can handle "math" up to five - especially when it involves food!

I think the behavior system has taught her math concepts by accident! :-)

She doesn't always feel like having her hair done, so on days when she doesn't want me to touch it, she promises me, "I'll just plug my hair behind my ears."

A few nights ago, she was commenting about a toy she couldn't find. I assured her it was probably in the playroom bathroom, where I have loaded everything from the storage unit (we closed it when we took the house off the market) plus all the toys boxed up and stacked (to prep for new paint/floor in playroom).

See?

Then she stated-

"And my kitchen is in there and I want it out immediately."

I asked her if she knew what immediately meant. 

She replied, "it means I want it out right now."

She was a little bossy but she didn't use a disrespectful voice, so I smiled at her clear message to me.

Yes, the painting and flooring are top priority so that we can give them their playroom back. Especially Alee.


And her last two brags are two that make me smile a lot...

She had been working on learning letters this year-one a week-we just finished lowercase f last week so this week will be capital G. We're mostly working on recognizing them everywhere we see them, but a little on phonics, but none really in writing them-she just can't get her hand to draw straight lines versus curves on demand... But we're getting there, because this week she had proudly learned to write "her A". She started trying with paper but I think it really sunk in a few days ago when she was "drawing" in some flour I had spilled on the floor. Now she writes it with anything she can find-on paper or digitally.

The last is less of a smart thing and more of a feeling thing-she is probably the most physically loving off all my kids-you wouldn't know it since she's still not really a people person but she kisses me probably more each day than all my other kids did in a week-then or now. And she's constantly telling me she loves me.

(She's also constantly telling me she's mommy's baby and can I feed her, hold her, dress her, etc like a baby) guess she just doesn't want her smarts to trick me into thinking she's growing up too fast. :-)