Bragging About Riley
Sunday, April 27, 2008 by Amy
Just a quick one, I hope. Pictures will come soon. Maybe.
Anyway, when I was picking up Riley from school on Friday I was talking to the director of her school, who was telling me how impressed she was with Riley's interpretation of a story that they read in circle time. The book was Ming Lo Moves the Mountain. It's about a husband and wife who life in the shadow of a mountain. Rocks keep falling off the mountain and putting holes in their roof. It is always raining in the shadow of the mountain and the sun never shines on their garden. So Ming Lo goes to a wise man to see if he can move the mountain. Long story short, the wise man tells Ming Lo and his wife to take the house apart stick by stick and close their eyes and put there left foot behind their right foot, and their right foot behind their left foot, and so on for a very long time. When Ming Lo and his wife open their eyes, they find that the mountain has moved. When Miss Rae asked the children what had really happened, Riley was the only one who raised her hand (thus participating in circle for the first time) and carefully and eloquently stated that it was the people who had moved and not the mountain. None of the other children "got it." Miss Rae said that Riley has excellent reasoning skills and can really figure things out beyond her age. Which is so nice to hear since we are pretty much consumed right now with what is wrong with Riley, that it's nice to focus on the positive for once.
Also, Miss Rae asked if Riley was left-eared, which is a concept that I have never heard. Apparently, people who are left-eared take a bit longer to process information and some of it gets lost in the process. Miss Rae said that she herself was left-eared and did auditory therapy to switch to being right eared. She said that sometimes when Riley is asked to do something, she eerily does something else. I have noticed that sometimes when you ask her to do something, she does something so entirely different that the only explanation would be "what, is she retarded?" Sometimes it's so baffling...
Anyway, gotta go...we're going to the zoo again. The Rocky Mountain Wild exhibit is opening in May (and or memberships conveniently expire this month) but they're having a members-only preview of it. Rudi's been waiting for this exhibit for years...
Anyway, when I was picking up Riley from school on Friday I was talking to the director of her school, who was telling me how impressed she was with Riley's interpretation of a story that they read in circle time. The book was Ming Lo Moves the Mountain. It's about a husband and wife who life in the shadow of a mountain. Rocks keep falling off the mountain and putting holes in their roof. It is always raining in the shadow of the mountain and the sun never shines on their garden. So Ming Lo goes to a wise man to see if he can move the mountain. Long story short, the wise man tells Ming Lo and his wife to take the house apart stick by stick and close their eyes and put there left foot behind their right foot, and their right foot behind their left foot, and so on for a very long time. When Ming Lo and his wife open their eyes, they find that the mountain has moved. When Miss Rae asked the children what had really happened, Riley was the only one who raised her hand (thus participating in circle for the first time) and carefully and eloquently stated that it was the people who had moved and not the mountain. None of the other children "got it." Miss Rae said that Riley has excellent reasoning skills and can really figure things out beyond her age. Which is so nice to hear since we are pretty much consumed right now with what is wrong with Riley, that it's nice to focus on the positive for once.
Also, Miss Rae asked if Riley was left-eared, which is a concept that I have never heard. Apparently, people who are left-eared take a bit longer to process information and some of it gets lost in the process. Miss Rae said that she herself was left-eared and did auditory therapy to switch to being right eared. She said that sometimes when Riley is asked to do something, she eerily does something else. I have noticed that sometimes when you ask her to do something, she does something so entirely different that the only explanation would be "what, is she retarded?" Sometimes it's so baffling...
Anyway, gotta go...we're going to the zoo again. The Rocky Mountain Wild exhibit is opening in May (and or memberships conveniently expire this month) but they're having a members-only preview of it. Rudi's been waiting for this exhibit for years...
