Alphabet Crown

After several close tries, Sofia finally passed off all her letters and corresponding sounds to earn the much sought after and highly regarded Alphabet Crown. The testing process is no easy task requiring a double pass off not only with the class teacher, Ms. Heather, but then also with the preschool director herself, Ms. Mimi in her office.

Seeing how close she had been to attaining this goal for several weeks, Ray encouraged her by promising her a Daddy and daughter outing to the movies once she earned the Crown. When I went to pick her up from school that Thursday, the alphabet crown was not even on my mind after the recent misses, so much so that it didn't even dawn on me when I saw her already standing outside proudly with Ms. Heather smiling from ear to ear and wearing, in fact, the infamous paper crown.


When she got in the car and Ms. Heather excitedly told me the news, I congratulated her gratuitously of course. Sofia was very excited and asked where Daddy was right away. As if somehow, he should have materialized immediately upon her accomplishment to take her straight over to the movies. I told her that he was still at work of course and explained that even when he came home, they were still not likely to go to the movies that very same day and that it would probably be on the weekend. That was a bit of a let down for sure.

But when it was time to go to the movies, she decided she wanted everyone to come. So we did. We went to see Bolt at the dollar movie. Remind me not to do that again with little kids. Even I had a hard time sitting through the extra half an hour of previews before the real previews, before the movie. Sofia was fine, it was Marcelo that was basically done with the movies by the time the actual movie started. I smuggled some home made popcorn and drinks in (you have to pinch pennies somewhere to have the luxe life that we do, you know). Sofia ate the entire bag less one kernel that she generally offered to me three quarters of the way into the movie. I didn't mind, it was her day after all and she enjoyed the movie from beginning to end.

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This is the sheet they use to pass of the letters and other skills. Sofia knows her colors and most of the shapes. You must first have your Alphabet Crown to start blending letters, so she will be learning this next.

[Click image to enlarge]
Certainly there is room for improvement. Also, I don't know whether I should be impressed or perplexed that she can "Always" subtract one from numbers under five, but needs "One-on-one guidance" to add one to numbers under five.

In the summer we are considering a Spanish language immersion preschool which she already took for a test drive a few weeks ago. I only spent the first half hour with her at the McKee Language School but I couldn't get the "Soy una pizza" song out of my head for weeks. She was rather shy at first, but still reservedly wanting to see what it was all about. The classes are structured so that they rotate through six different activity types every fifteen minutes or so (Greeting and weather, Kitchen, Arts & Crafts, Drama, Shop, and Shopping). When the children participate in short conversations with each other and the teacher, they receive tokens which they can use to shop with at the end of each day. Sofia was very intrigued when she saw the teacher giving out tokens and the children putting them in their little fanny pack style bags. The teacher tried to get Sofia to participate several times while I was there but she wasn't ready to say anything. However, when they moved on to the "Kitchen" room, the bananas and yogurt snack got her talking immediately.

Suddenly she was having such a good time that she readily said "Yes" when I asked her if she wanted to stay for the whole class time and have me come back and pick her up later. When I came back, I was almost shocked to see she had a respectable number of tokens, I helped her count them and she purchased a bouncy ball.

It will be a lot of driving. The classes will be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in the afternoon in Orem. But hopefully, it will be worth it.

Legacy Center Gymnastics

Sofia has been going to gymnastics twice a week at the Lehi recreation center since December per her wishes. On her first day, we got there early and she met another little girl with whom she made friends with right away. They compared their gymnastics skills, hoping around on one foot, and their gymnastics attire. After a few minutes, more kids started trickling in. Sofia's new little friend took a place on one of the mats forming a semi circle on the floor. Sofia followed and took a place right beside her. They were giggling with delight. For some reason, Sofia left her spot for a minute and another little girl, seeing how much fun it was to sit there, took her place. When Sofia returned, she was quite upset and started recoiling from the group. I tried to coax her to take another seat and call her friend over but she was just frozen with her hand clutched up to her mouth.

It was bitter sweet seeing how quickly and easily she had made friends with this little girl and how excited she was to participate in her new gymnastics class to then see her outcast herself from the group. Luckily, the little friend took it upon herself to bring another mat next to her and call Sofia over to it. Sofia was happy again, but the confidence wasn't there. Unfortunately, they didn't end up together when they broke off into smaller groups but Sofia seemed to enjoy herself following directions and cautiously trying new things.


Sofia and her new friend were together in a few more classes but eventually, the friend stopped coming. Sofia hasn't made any new friends like this in her class since. At the beginning of the class, there is a stretching period for which Sofia usually refuses to participate (she has slowly improved). Then they sit around in a close circle with feet in the center and sanitize their hands. Sofia is always sticking out of the circle. Next, they separate into groups of 4-6 and rotate through three different activities on the floor by marching in a line from one area to the other. Sofia usually gets picked last and ends up at the back of the line whether by choice or by attitude. She doesn't allow anyone to touch her and she doesn't touch the other kids when they form a train putting their hands on the shoulders of the child in front of them. Once its Sofia's turn to try out the activity at hand, she readily participates.


It makes me a bit sad to see that her behavior stands out from everyone else's. I don't mind her being an independent thinker, if fact, I encourage it. I don't even want her to be like everyone else but in a positive way not a negative way. It's the outcast effect of her behaviour that bothers me. She's either the class clown that everyone wants to be around or it's nothing at all. I'd like her to be a bit more regular when it comes to getting along with other kids, instead of one extreme or the other. But she seems to want to seek the most attention by being the favorite or by calling attention to herself by not participating. She doesn't seem to want to be just regular and get regular attention. I wish I could figure out a way to steer her in the right direction but I feel more and more, that she has set her own path and she's sticking to it.


It's probably for all of these reasons that I hadn't taken pictures of her doing gymnastics, but on this day, Tia Marcela stopped by to watch her from the viewing area above, where I sit with Marcelo and sometimes Autumn. Sofia was excited over the special occasion. In fact, when I went to drop her off, she told me she wanted to come upstairs with us instead. As if, in her mind, she's the one missing out. I had to convince her to go in the class, that we were all here to see her, that there was nothing better going on upstairs with us. Finally, she relented. She kept looking up to see if Tia Marcela was there and when she finally spotted her while doing the balance beam, she looked up with her gleaming smile full of pride.