Sam: “Mommy, do you know what I’m going to be when I’m an indult?” Me: “No, please tell me.” Sam: “A cashier. AND an artist.” Sam: “And I’m also going to be a mail woman.” Me: “You mean like a mail carrier? Someone who delivers the mail to people’s houses?” Sam: “Yes! And I’m definitely going to be a mommy.” Me: “How …

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After a three-year hiatus I am once again teaching French. You know the old teacherly saying, “It seems like the students are getting younger every year?” Well, in my case, it’s true. These are the youngest students I have ever taught. They don’t remember 9/11. They don’t know who Michael Jackson was. They definitely …

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On Tuesday we counted 130 instances of the letter S during morning shopping errands. I’m trying the old “letter of the week” theme with Sam and we are starting this week with S. She’s keenly interested in that letter. She may believe on some level that it belongs to her. But it also belongs to Stop Signs and Sale Signs …

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Lobsters always makes me think of Annie Hall. Sam and I didn’t try to drop any live ones in a pot of boiling water but in our creation of the crusty crustaceans we did manage to get paint EVERYwhere, resulting in much giggling and hopping and contorting of bodies on our way to the tub. First we painted Sam’s hands and …

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While trying to organize some of the clutter in our little house before 14 people come over on Thursday for the first session of Allons-y les petits (my preschooler French class — !!!) I came across this story Sam wrote last month. She dictated it to me and after I’d written it down she illustrated it. The narrative …

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One of Sam’s regular questions is: “When do I get to have my OWN laptop?” I finally broke down. Here it is: (Thanks again to No Time for Flash Cards for the idea.) This is a special design. Sam rejected both the QWERTY and DVORAK keyboard layout in favor of ZYKHJT raised to the Q. Also, notice the space bar on the left …

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Some research I was doing on children’s book publishers led me to There’s a Dragon Downstairs by Hilary McKay and Amanda Harvey (2005). Every night Sophie hears a dragon “rattling through the cat flap, slinking to the living room, growing and growing in the dark.” No one believes her, but Sophie is sure. The story is …

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Once again I must credit No Time for Flash Cards for this idea: take an empty egg carton, paste or paint a color on the bottom of each individual egg container, and then head outside to find things in nature that match the color. Sam initially wanted nothing to do with painting the egg carton, since she had her own …

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Back home in California, Sam has asked to continue the daily arts and crafts tradition we fell in to in the UK. (Thank heavens for craft blogs, because I would have run out of ideas long ago.) The source for this project is No Time for Flash Cards. A wonderful resource for parents of preschool age children and …

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Three years old, that is. Today is Sammy’s birthday. Her parents are happy and proud. At age 3 Sam is toilet trained, she can legibly write two of the three letters of her name (the “A” and the “M”), she can reliably count up to 10 objects, she is chatty and charming and friendly. Also, she exhausts us like no other …

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