The Kid Can READ!

It turns out that D has been teaching himself to read. On Sunday he read aloud a page from one of his favorite Star Wars books all by himself  for the very first time with lots of encouragement from his dad.

I cannot take credit for this development. D has been teaching himself. I'm firmly in the camp of "no academics until age 6." I have always loved reading to my kids. However, in my opinion, if they want to read on their own, it is up to them to lead the way. One of his favorite electronic games is a "phonics and spelling" game I was given for free at a yard sale. (Above, you can see a photo of him showing M how to use it.)He also loves www.Starfall.com . The last few months he had been keenly interested in spelling and he began writing words to describe his illustrations a few weeks ago.(I also have not "taught" him to write. D has been begging me to show him how to write letters for at least a year now and he had taught himself to write the alphabet and to write words. I only suggested that he arrange them in a left-to-right configuration, which he happily has done. I now routinely get pictures with "I LOVE U J BY D" written on them.)

Reaching back to my childhood, I do not recall being taught to read. I do remember being 3 or 4 and sitting at my little table in my room reading a book about a michevious mouse named Pippa. I cannot recall the name of the book, only the feeling of pride that I could read it by myself. I know this is how D is feeling with his most recent accomplishment. He's always loved having materials read aloud to him; picture books, chapter books, newspaper articles. If it doesn't have pictures, he closes his eyes and engages his imagination, asking lots of clarifying questions to enrich his experience; asking about the definitions of words and how to spell them. It's as if he's sitting up a bit taller today when we read together, an active participant in the reading.

And so it is. D, has taught himself how to spell and read at age 4. As a mother, who has been by his side almost continuously since birth, I am in awe and honored to be a witness.

What We're Reading, Our Country, and the Alphabet!

 More great books!

• I'm Too Big / Soy Demasiado Grande (we laugh a lot over the silly illustrations!)
• Rabbits & Raindrops 
• Olivia...and the Missing Toy (quickly becoming a favorite - we will have to buy this one)
• We're into Lentil this week, using the FIAR curruculum. I took inspiration from the suggested ideas today and made a little lesson on our country. I printed off an American flag. We counted the stripes and the stars. Then we got out our map of the USA and counted the states to demonstrate that the number of starts was the same as the states. We then located out state, the states where our relatives live, and the state in which the story Lentil takes place. D colored the flag and we listened to the Star Spangled Banner and talked about what a national anthem is and when we sing it.

After reading and the lesson. D wanted to do artwork, so he worked with his watercolor paints, creating several imaginative representations for his daddy. Then we moved to puzzles. I was impressed with the speed he finished two puzzles. The third puzzle was of the alphabet, which we've been working on. He's been asking lots of questions about how we spell certain words or what letter certain words start with. We took a  while with this puzzle, D repeatedly referring back to the alphabet song to figure out what letter came next. Once he knew the next letter, with little difficulty he was able to locate the letter. So impressive! I think we'll probably work on that puzzle again this week as he really enjoyed it. 

What We're Reading and Introducing Math Concepts - week of January 25th

We're reading two of my favorite books from childhood and an additional one we just discovered!

• Madeline - with which we are following Five in a Row curriculum for activity ideas.
  
• Blueberries for Sal - D really likes the illustrations and often spends time after we are done reading to look at them hiself. 
• In the Snow: Who's Been Here? - We had fun identifying the animals. Despite being unseasonable warm here, it is timely for the season, particularly coming on the heels of some trips outside to locate tracks in the snow and making bird feeders to hang on our deck. 
• The Umbrella.  By Jan Brett, author of Town Mouse Country Mouse, beautiful illustrations!

 We've been having fun with counting and grouping. For example, we counted out 12 pennies, then we created 2 lines of 6 pennies each; 4 lines of 3 pennies and saw that they also formed 4 lines of 3 pennies. No matter how many likes, or groups, we still had 12 pennies. Then we talked about "more" and "less" - that 5 is more than 4 but 5 is less than 6. D seemed pretty intrigued. We used the pennies to create groups with the numbers so that visually he could see that there were more pennies in the group of 6 verses 4, for example. We'll continue this for the week. The incentive is that he gets to keep the pennies at the end of each lesson and put them in his piggy bank!

What We're Reading this Week and Beginning to Write!

I'm really enjoying myself - rediscovering some children's books that I'd forgotten about as well as discovering new gems!

• We're using the Five in a Row curriculum for Katy and The Big Snow. We're on day 3. I love how many layers of enjoyment there are to be had in this timeless book. Every day we've been exploring different aspects and uncovering new details in the illustrations.
• Time of Wonder - beautiful water colors and nostalgia for me, having grown up in Coastal NH.
• Little Red Riding Hood

D has also been asking me to teach him how to write letters lately, so I got out our "ABC's Write and Wipe!" from Kumon. We work on a few different letters a day and we've been having fun. We tried them a few nonths ago, but they didn't really work out. so, now that he is interested again, we're giving it another go. His hand coordination has improved dramatically and he's able to follow the lines independently since he now knows his numbers.  I like these rather than simple paper because they can be reused and they have a corresponding word on the back, so they double as flash cards.

Loving Reading - Books This Week and Five in a Row has Arrived!

D loves to read - so great! Or, I should say, he loves to be read to. We're spending about an hour a day reading. Usually he wants to read one or two books several times through and likes to memorize them. Last night he recited "The Snowy Day" with me word-for-word.

This week, we've been reading...

• The Snowy Day

• The Quiltmakers Gift

• Olivia

• The Giving Tree

• Owl Babies

• Town Mouse Country Mouse

The links included are pretty cool. Several take you to websites that offer enrichment activities and extras for kids.

Today, our curriculum for Five in a Row arrived! I am really excited to get going on it. I have Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel queued up for next week!