3 Part Animal Puzzles

E(2) had so much fun putting these animal puzzle cards together last week! She put a couple together correctly, and then decided that it was hilarious to mix them up!

A Book Garland

O LOVES to read! She has known her letter sounds for a while (I give most of the credit for this to her watching the Letter Factory once or twice a week for a couple of months), and suddenly something clicked (while playing with the spinny speller, paint chip word game, trap door readers, and watching Talking Words) and she was reading. (It almost seemed like magic...I guess she was just ready). She quickly transferred that knowledge into reading books. She is so proud of herself, and I thought she'd like to hang up the books she has read.

I strung a piece of yarn from the mantle, and she puts each book that she has read on the yarn. She loves to add new books and then counts them all to annouce the total...she's up to 9 so far. In the past 2 weeks she has lost interest in reading books by herself. That's okay with me. As long as she doesn't lose interest in having us read books to her, I'll be happy. (When she read her first book, she said "Now you don't have to read books to me anymore." I told her that would never happen because I love to read to her. She'll be a grown woman, and I'll still be coming over to read aloud with her and her sister.)

Trap Door Readers

O LOVES these trap door reading cards! I was very excited when Arwen from Walk Beside Me emailed and asked me to try out these cards. I printed them on cardstock and followed the directions for cutting and folding them. They were easy to put together, and O has thoroughly enjoyed reading the words. These cards are a great way to make reading fun! Thanks, Arwen!

You can purchase the trap door reading cards for download from here or here.

Five in a Row...Make Way for Ducklings

I've been intrigued by the Five in a Row program for a while, and I finally decided to order the book. (since I had amazon credit...THANKS to everyone who clicks in to Amazon through the button in my sidebar!) I chose Volume 2 since I already had 4 of the books. We've only "rowed" 2 books, but so far we LOVE it! (click on the link to the Five in a Row homepage to read more about the program...because I am too lazy to explain it well :)

Our first Five in a Row book was Make Way for Ducklings. I am keeping this process as simple as possible, and we are reading the book and then having the discussions suggested in the book. I've decided against making lapbooks and ordering the Fold n Learns...for now. I love how this process has prompted me to look deeper at the books and to see things that I didn't notice before. I've been amazed by how perceptive O is as she has demonstrated in our discussions. On Art day, I gave O a brown pencil and her sketch book and encouraged her to draw a picture with just a brown crayon like the illustrations in the book. I was very surprised when she showed me her drawing of a duck. She did a great job and was proud of herself!



We are "rowing" Peter Rabbit this week. O loves the book, and she was excited to learn about onomatopoeia today :) She has also had fun acting out the book, but she insists that Mr. MacGregor is out of town, and she doesn't want anyone to act out his part. We've also been planting our garden this week which which coincides perfectly with the reading of this book.

I am looking forward to "rowing" more books and plan to continue this even after O begins school in the fall. I'd love input on the Fold n Learns...are they worth the money? They seem a bit pricey to me. I'm also interested in the Five in a Row Nature Studies books. If anyone has any experience with either of these products, I'd love to hear more about them. Thanks!

The Moveable Alphabet...

...or not! My birthday was the day after Easter, so we celebrated on Easter with the delicious cheese braid that my mom makes for me every year. This year she bought candy letters to spell out Happy Birthday. After they sang to me, O started playing with the letters and making and reading words. What fun!



As an ironic side note, my mom gave me an avocado pitter for my birthday...I cut my finger the next day using a knife to pit an avocado. As I was bringing the knife down to the avocado pit, I was thinking "I should find the avocado pitter that mom just gave me." As I was bleeding all over the kitchen, I was thinking "I REALLY should have found and used the avocado pitter!"

Egg Word Match-Up

Since O is really enjoying sounding out words lately, I'm trying to provide her with lots of opportunities to do so. This Easter cvc word match-up game from My Montessori Journey was perfect (via Walk Beside Me)!

We've had wonderful weather lately, so we've been having circle time, work time, and picnics on our screened porch. See E's sweet little hand? She was trying to help her big sister with her work :)

Easter Egg Word Family Activity

Cara at The Peterson Party posted about this fun Easter egg word family game a couple of weeks ago, and I knew we had to try it! It was simple to put together and fun to play. To make the activity, simply write the word family endings on one half of the egg and initial consonants on the other side. O had trouble turning the eggs (I did, too), but she really enjoyed sounding out the words. We've spent a lot of time in the car over the last week, and this was a fun new activity to do while riding. Thanks, Cara, for this fun activity!

Easter Egg Word Hunt

O has had a wonderful time finding Easter eggs with cvc words hidden inside! Thanks to Walk Beside Me for this fun idea!

As soon as O finds an egg, she opens it and sounds out the word. After she sounds out the word, she "says it fast." I sometimes have to remind her to "say it fast." O has had a reading explosion this week. It is amazing to watch, and she is having so much fun and is so proud of herself!