"Lilly - cracker"

When Solomon was a baby, I decided to teach him a little bit of sign language to make communication easier.  I had several friends who had done so with their children and had success.  It worked for us too - Solomon learned essential signs and it alleviated a lot of frustration for both of us.

We don't watch TV, but we do have selected dvds.  The one thing Solomon loves to watch are the "Signing Time" dvds we have.  (You can see the dvds on the Signing Time website here.)    He watches them and repeats (verbally) the words and try to sign with his fingers.  We recently found Signing Time dvds at our library and have been checking them out.  Our routine at the library is I will hand him a few dvds off the shelf and he shouts "Time! Time!" and I tell him "shhhhhh!"

For a couple weeks now, Solomon has been pointing to the Lilly collage that is on the wall across from where he sits at the dining room table.

Whenever he does, he says "crack-er" and does the sign language sign for "cracker."  (The sign is to tap your elbow with your fist.)

Then he points at the Lilly collage again and says "crack-er."  We could not figure out why he was doing this. There were no pictures with crackers in the collage!  Finally I got up on a chair, and held him up to the collage and said "Where is cracker?"  He promptly pointed to the picture of Lilly in the white dress:

Ohhhhhhh!  I finally got it!  Notice Lilly's arm that is bent and touching her chin.  He thought she was signing "cracker."

(Solomon just now looked at the computer screen and pointed at the above picture and said "crack-er."  Ha!)

For the past month or so, sections of our yard - and the chicken coop - have looked like a giant feather pillow fight has taken place.  Our hens that we bought last year, are now about 18 months old and are having their first molt.  I didn't know it at first, but when they molt, they don't lay eggs.  So all of the sudden, our egg supply had greatly dropped.  I was convinced the hens were being rebellious and hiding their eggs and I spent a lot of time looking for the eggs.  Then one day Tabby said in passing "chickens don't lay when they are molting."

Oh.  I am sorry for the accusations, hens!

Thankfully the group of chickens we bought this past spring are about old enough to start laying.  One is doing so consistently.  Then I found this tiny egg in the coop earlier this week.  Doesn't it look so tiny next to the (normal size) Americana egg?

This past week was our first week back to homeschool.  I hope to blog a little about that this Sunday and share the Montessori activities that I introduced Solomon to this week.

Have a blessed weekend!