Who is Z

Z is my 5 year old daughter.

Z loves to read and can read at an adult level. She read the first three Harry Potter books when she was 4 1/2 and has recently begun reading Agatha Christie. She always sleeps with a big pile of books in her bed instead of a teddy bear.

Z's is passionate about music and singing. She has an uncanny ability to remember music that she has onl heard once or twice. She loves to sing and memorized the lyrics to the musical Les Miserable when she was three. She also has a good memory for dialogue and loves to act and sing on stage. As of this writing Z has been in 3 productions - one doing a monologue and a scene, one musical theatre production - Cole Porter's Anything Goes, and also playing two roles in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.

My girl is a very physical child. In fact her physical gifts were obvious from the first and, back then, more noticable to me than her mental ones. She was crawling at 5 months and walking at 8 months. She was advanced into a gymnastics class for 3 year olds before she was 2. She loves gymnastics, and martial arts and can't wait until she is old enough to learn fencing or kendo. :)

She also has an uncommon interest in languages. Z is taking Japanese lesson's right now but has also learned some Spanish, Hebrew and French. She likes to read foreign language dictionaries for fun. *strange child* ;)

But in many respects she likes normal little girl things, like the color pink, eating candy, and playing dress up.

Although we have always wanted to homeschool Z she did spend 7 months in a Jewish preschool. It was the best preschool I could find and Z enjoyed herself with the singing, reading, baking, playing and snacks. Since then we have not found any schools that we feel are as appropriate for her as homeschooling as she is between 2 and 5 grade levels ahead in her academic work. Being able to teach her at her level is important but I think homeschooling offers maybe other benefits as well. Homeschooling offers us the flexibility and freedom to follows Z's many interests, meet with her friends and still have downtime for imaginative play and creating. Homeschooling allows Z to spend the majority of her time being herself and also time to figure out who that is.

This blog is about my time educating and parenting Z. Things aren't always easy but they are usually interesting. ;)