Lately, E(3) has not been interested in "doing" school at all. Each morning while O(6) is doing her school work, I offer to do a lesson with E. She says "No, thank you," and off she goes. While O is completing her lessons, E(3) spends her time digging up earthworms in the dirt, observing bees buzz around the Azalea bushes, following our cat around the yard, inspecting the blueberry bushes, etc. She creates games and a wonderful world of pretend play. Honestly, I'd much rather her spend her time engaging in free and creative play in nature with little restrictions (she has to stay within the fence...we live right on a lake) than inside doing "school" lessons. She has the rest of her life to read, but the time for engaging in creative and open ended pretend play is now!
I admit that earthworms make me feel a little squeamish, but my girls LOVE to play with them. E(3) names her earthworms and will sit and play with them for hours. (In this picture, she was excited that she created an earthworm ring!) What a joyful childhood they have!
We finally made it back to our school room after more than 2 weeks off! It was quite an adjustment to be back in there, but it ended well...phew!
E(3) had fun completing this initial consonants work. I printed and laminated these cards several years ago for O(6), so I'm not sure where they came from...I'm hoping someone will recognize them and let me know, so that I can add a link.
To do this work, E(3) named the picture, said the sound for each letter listed, and then circled the letter that matches the picture. She was leaning over on my lap and snuggling me the whole time she worked. At one point, she paused in her work and looked at me and said "When I grow up, I'm going to make art to put in museums and be a ballerina." Love her!
E(3) LOVES to do reading work! I do NOT make her do this work...I give her the opportunity, and she either takes it or doesn't. If she doesn't want to do the work, that is absolutely fine. I follow her lead, and right now she wants to read like her big sister! (but she spends most of her time engaged in pretend play, listening to us read books to her, and playing outside...she spends less than 15 minutes a day doing reading work and only about 3 days a week....I don't want to push reading on her as it is not really developmentally appropriate for a 3 year old. However, since she wants to read desperately, I'm not going to deny her. She's having fun, and that is what is most important!)
She loved reading simple words using the sandpaper letters last week!
E loves the spinny speller!
Since O(6) is doing All About Reading Level 2, E(3) was THRILLED when I ordered All About Reading Level 1 for her! She begged to read the stories and was disappointed that the lessons didn't have her reading stories right from the beginning. She loves reading the words on the green cards, and she had fun making the words on the Spinny Speller match her flashcards. I love that the lessons are so short and engaging for her. We haven't done any of the worksheets yet...I'm not a fan of worksheets, but E really wants to do them, so we probably will. (I'm not a fan of flashcards, either, especially for E's age, but she loves them, so she reads them).
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I decided a couple of weeks ago to try to do one reading activity with E(3) per day (she spends the vast majority of her time playing pretend and looking at books). E LOVES these reading activities, and after just a couple of days, she actually started reading! It clicked for her suddenly, and she is SO excited and proud!
These initial consonant cards are one of her favorite works to choose from her shelf. She has been choosing this work for a few months and always does well with it. I love it because it has a self-checking feature, so she can do it completely idependently.
To do this work, she labels the picture and puts her finger in the hole of the correct initial consonant. She then turns the card over to see if she is right. Fun!
After E(3) figured out how to put the sounds together to read the words, I wrote several word family words with chalk in the driveway. I "hopped" her from one letter to the next as she said each sound. Then I plopped her down, and she shouted the word. So much fun!
I then wrote a sentence and she stepped on each word as she read it. She was a little distracted at this point and wasn't that into this activity, but this is definitely something we'll do again soon. She LOVES reading the first 4 BOB books, so I plan to write sentences from these books for her to read.
It's really important to me that she spend most of her time playing pretend, playing outside, and listening to/looking at books. We spend 15 minutes at the very most on reading activities a day, and we don't work on this everyday. In contrast, she spent 6 hours outside yesterday playing pretend, climbing, running, walking, exploring, collecting treasures (rocks, fossils, pine straw, dried mud), and experiencing the world.
E(2) had "T" Week a long time ago (November) , and I never posted about it. Since I plan to make an ABC book for her using these alphabet posts, I'm trying to catch up and get everything on the blog!
She recieved a tiger puppet craft kit, a T coloring page, and a growing turtle in her ABC fun pack.
She matched the tiger to her sandpaper "t."
Both girls love the letter stories in the Amazing Action Alphabet book.
We went exploring on a nearby island and noticed lots of tracks!
The girls especially loved the raccoon tracks since they look like "eeny weeny it's so teeny" baby handprints.
I was so excited to find these Christmas card puzzles a few days ago (that I made 2 years ago). E(2) had fun with this activity, but she needed a little help at first.
To make this activity, just cut a square from each Christmas card and have your child match the squares to the correct cards. It's fun, and it's a great activity for teaching attention to details and concentration skills!
E(2) and I made a magnetic pipe cleaner discovery bottle during "P" week! To make this discovery bottle, I cut pipe cleaners into small pieces and put them in a clean and dry plastic bottle. It doesn't get much simpler than that!
The girls love moving the pipe cleaner pieces around using their magic magnetic wand!
This is another one of those activities that is all over Pinterest...so, I'm not going to link to a specific site for the idea.
I introduced this transferring activity to E(2) last week, and she was immediately successful when picking up the marbles with the spoon and then dropping them into the bottle. (I was very surprised that it was so easy for her). However, when I started videoing the activity, she had a VERY hard time picking up a marble with the spoon. It was almost painful to watch, and I wanted to jump in and do it for her. I had to bite my tongue, and I was just waiting for her to ask for help, so that I could jump in and help her...Here's the video.
After she spent so much time chasing the marbles around the bowl with the spoon, I realized that I needed to put something in the bowl to hold the marbles. I put a small square of tissue in the bowl, and it worked perfectly.
This is a great activity for developing persistence when presented with a difficult task (obviously!). She's also developing hand/eye coordination, fine motor control, concentration, the ability to transfer from left to right (which will eventually help with reading), and the ability to cross her midline. So many things are going on during this very simple task.
The idea for this activity came from this blog via Pinterest.
