Continuous little efforts

Holidays is a time for family. Unfortunately (purely from a linguistic standpoint), the family we spent our holidays with is ML monolingual family. We traveled to the girls’ paternal grandparents. Because of this, there hasn’t been a ton of time for ml activities. The girls spent several nights with their grandparents, so even our bedtime book ritual got disrupted.

Really the only forward progress in ml was my little one asking to have the original “speaking stone” rules restored. She wants to have the same rules as her sister, where it’s my judgement over her spoken Russian is good that day. I figure at least she feels ready to attempt to speak in pure Russian. That’s something.

I started learning Hebrew on Duolingo. It’s the first time I used the app in over a year. Apparently it changed to where it’s possible to play entirely by clicking and dragging with no typing involved. This is a good thing for my kids because they always struggled with spelling, even on the easiest level where they knew all the words and grammar. My older one saw me playing on the app, and decided to give it a go. She took a placement test in Russian, and played some. The lack of typing is definitely an improvement in the apps usability for children. Maybe I’ll encourage her to complete the whole Russian course. Don’t know that it would improve her vocabulary, but it will definitely put a spotlight on the grammar.

This being a new year I decided to set some language goals for the year. For the little one I want to get to a point where at least 90% of things she says to me is Russian. That goal is easy. The goal for the older one is harder. I feel like I made the goal to have her read Russian books for pleasure for at least 3 years running now. I need something new, but I don’t know what a good realistic goal would be.

Even if it is not "reading for pleasure" you could put a goal of reading a page a day or a chapter a day or whatever you feel is doable from books in the ml you choose for her. I also like Amy's suggestion of writing a journal. Or maybe something with poetry, like reading or memorizing poems in the ml?

This is not quite the weekend update as it was still winter break here. However I had a really sweet and productive Russian session with the kiddos that I want to document for posterity.

This past week, after we got back from our trip to in-laws my husband has been staying home with the kids while I go to work. As a consequence they’re bored and hungry for my company when I get home.

Last night I suggested that the kids read. Natalie, the oldest, decided to continue her literature textbook. The next text in it was The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats fairy tale. Mila, the youngest, loves that one so she grabbed her picture book version and looked at the pictures while Natalie read. It was a lot different than our picture book version. A lot of older words and some that I didn’t even know. So I stopped on occasion to explain what they were. She read it all, though, earning her reading stone reward. We also talked about fairy tales and how they have traditional ways to begin and end them, and compared and contrasted them with English beginnings and endings. We looked in Mila’s picture book to look at all the beginnings and endings to find Russian examples.

Then, the little one, somewhat bored by all this, demanded that I read a different story from the picture book. Because we were already in the whole “explain this unfamiliar word” mood, she kept interrupting me with questions about words she didn’t quite know. Some things, like tar and a feather blanket and a well she didn’t understand as a concept, so she demanded pictures and videos. We compromised and I told her that I’ll explain and show all those, but only *after* I finish the story. Suffice it to say, by that point it took us 10 minutes to read half a page. But, I told her, she has to keep track of the words, because I was busy focusing on reading. So she decided to write them down! She earned a writing stone for that.

After the story, we looked at the pictures and watched a bunch of little educational videos about wells, hearths, and production and uses of tar. All in Russian of course. 😀

I wish every evening could be like that. The reading, the writing, the new vocabulary all fit together so organically that the kids just enjoyed the process.

Ugh! Momentum is hard. I haven’t been able to find that needed time to practice reading or writing the last few days.

But a funny and frustrating story. The two sisters are now in the same school and I get the feeling they’re having issues not having their own domain. They fight all the time. This morning the oldest pushed the younger one over right in front of me. Obviously she got punished for it immediately. So she started a temper tantrum that it’s all her little sister’s fault, she always does it (don’t ask me what the mythical *it* is) on purpose. She said that I don’t understand her, that nobody understands her. Then she stormed out. Flawless Russian! I can’t decide if I’m proud, angry or frustrated about all this. I guess it’s good that at times of intense stress she still doesn’t slide into English. It means that Russian is an effortless thing for her now.

Hahaha. I have done this many times!

Maybe you could do audiobooks in the car?