Under the weather, but still teaching!!!

This is my 3rd day in a row being sick with a head cold.  Yuck!  My sweet DH even came home at lunch today to watch the kids and let me sleep some more.  Even though I was sick, my DD was demanding to do school....who could deny a precious 4 year old her reading, handwriting, witing journal, 2 math, and 2 social studies (Scholastic News - Grade 1) lessons??!!

I can't believe she wanted to do so much!  It's so great to be able to teach her quickly and as she asks for it, even while sick.  She is always telling me how fun school is, so I'm happy that she's happy.  We'll probably still read a few library books before bed, too.  I'm so glad she enjoys this as much as I do.  It's very gratifying!

Find of the Week: MINDsprinting.com

So I'm going to try a new theme on my blog...a find of the week!  I come across tons of awesome resources every week, and I'd really like to document my favorites (at least once a week).

This week, I revisited a site that I'd glanced at before but never looked at any further.  The site is MINDsprinting.com and, for now, it is free!  I was able to give my DD a reading and a math placement test.  From these results, I found that she is reading at a 1st grade reading level (just like the other 3 tests had said - I guess that's pretty darn accurate, eh?) and a kindergarten math level.  This is not bad for a 4.5 year old, right? :) 

Here comes the cool part - after you take your FREE assessments (there is also a reading comprehension test for older kiddos), you can join their site and get lesson worksheets customized based on your child's results!  Each child can have their own information saved within the system.  The worksheets are excellent and you can save them to review later.  Sometimes it even gives you extra sheets that you could download for extra practice.  Once your child has finished the work, you record the results and it gives you your next lesson for them based on the completion of the past lesson.

I love this service!  The website says that it will go up to around $30/year per student and I think it's WELL worth that price when/if it changes to that.  The scope and sequence of their curriculum is very thorough and I feel that it is complete.

You will still need to instruct your child in the lessons (unless they already understand what is being presented).  At this point, that's no problem because my kiddo is so young and I still know everything she's covering.  This went along very well with what DD has been learning in The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading.

I encourage you to check out MINDsprinting!

Completed Reading Assessments...

So I've been doing some reading assessments with DD and am thrilled to say that she's reading very well and at a 1st+ grade level (at 4.5 years old!). I'm beginning to think this homeschooling thing works..lol

I did the assessment here: K12 Placement Tests and she passed the Basic Phonics Assessment with a score of 90 (86 needed to pass). I've done 2 other reading level tests (though they are terribly informal in comparison to this one!) and she was placed at a 2nd grade reading level on one and a 1st grade, 6th month reading level on another.

I'm telling you that The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading really works!!!

Wow it's been a long time!!

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so very long since I've blogged. I haven't been entirely tied up with having a newborn and 2 young kids, but I have been tied up in trying to maintain the household and getting through the holidays!
We've been homeschooling, but not at the same speed and with the same gusto as before. It just hasn't been practical for us, but we'll be doing more soon.
What I love is that DD has been learning to read more and more. We haven't done many reading lessons, but she has been reading to me a LOT from readers that we have. I got out some Hooked on Phonics readers we'd gotten free from another homeschooling family a while back and she can already read several of the "real" books (the ones that don't just have 3 words a page). At first, she resisted and told me that the words were too little and that she "couldn't" read this kind of book by herself. Now she reads them alone with VERY little assistance!
We've taken the approach of reading where I read what she tells me to (usually a page or a sentence) and she reads an equal or greater amount. We keep taking turns until the book is through. It's going VERY well!

I did an assessment with my DS today. He will be turning 3 in about 3 weeks and I wanted to see where he was at. He did very well!
Letter Name Sound
-----------------------------
A Yes No
B Yes Yes
C No Yes
D No No
E Yes Yes
F Yes Yes
G No Yes
H Yes Yes
I No No
J No No (Though he did tell me that it "says JUMP")
K No Yes
L Yes Yes
M No Yes
N No Yes
O Yes Yes
P No Yes
Q Yes No (he said it says "k" and then said "like duck" - so close!)
R Yes Yes
S No Yes
T Yes Yes
U No Yes
V No No (he said it says "buh")
W No Yes
X Yes Yes (and said, "like FOX!")
Y No Yes
Z Yes No (said it says "sssss")

I guess the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD is paying off! :) I'm so proud of my little 2 year old son and his retention of the letters and their sounds. We'll keep loosely working at it and it'll make reading instruction easier in a year or two for sure!

We played around a bit on Starfall.com today. They have printables for each letter of the alphabet and on them there are suggestions for little games. SIMPLE things like jump if the word I say begins with the /j/ sound or stay still if it doesn't....or thumbs up if the word I say begins with /s/ or thumbs down if it doesn't. The kids LOVED this! DS played along copying his big sister. DD had a blast! She thought it was silly and creative and fun.

So far, so good!
I'm considering focusing mainly on this kind of thing for the next little while and adding in some math instruction as well.

Speaking of math, does anyone have any experience with Math Mammoth? Does anyone know if Grade 1 would be appropriate for a mathy 4 1/2 year old?

Slow and Steady Wins the Race...

Well our lessons have slowed some as we've been trying to find a routine for our lives... Our sweet little newborn went through a huge growth spurt during the tail end of last week and during the weekend, so I was really tied up feeding him and tending to him (because let's face it... if a newborn is awake, they feel it's their duty to dirty a diaper at least two or three times an hour... lol). He seems to have slowed down now and is sleeping more and eating less for now, so it's back to school!

The kids and I *have* been doing fun stuff even though academically it's been slow... we made cupcakes last week and cookies this week - and we've been doing playdates and such again... so it's all good!

This week we are still doing jungle animals and addition.... and we'll be getting started on discussing kangaroos, kites, and hot & cold. I have to take the kids to the library tomorrow to pick up some books on those. :) We've worked through OPGTR Lesson #72, so that's good too! I'm enjoying watching DD read, but find myself frustrated that she will read a word with a silent E with the short vowel sound first and then when my finger doesn't move from behind the word (signalling to her that she read it incorrectly), she'll say, "I mean..." and read it correctly. Another thing I'm frustrated with is that she gets B and D confused.... I know it's common, but I hate it nonetheless. lol Oh well!

Besides all of that, no complaints! School is going slowly, but surely and I know this kind of week is more than okay! They are REAL life and that's alright! I try and remind myself that the kids learn so much from real life experiences and *gasp* PBS. hehe

Moving right along! :)

We are plugging right along with the curriculum. Yesterday we only read 2 books, but today we've already started learning about addition (something DD understands with concrete objects...but I'm introducing the addition and equal signs now and she thinks it is cool!) and done about 6 activities! Hooray!

It seems like we read more and more books every week. Last week, we read something ridiculous like 18 books in 24 hours. They just have a hunger for it and I think it's awesome. We've been reading a mix of books related to their science instruction (for example, this week we have a jungle theme - some science books, some fun books with jungle animals), math instruction (I have about 5 books related to addition here for this week), and the season/holidays (lots of fall books... we did Columbus books last week and we've read several Halloween books as well). I love that they are learning quite a bit through this reading even if we don't have time for formal instruction. They also choose other books when we go to the library, so it's always a fun mix around here!

The kids got to watch "The Jungle Book" this weekend since we're doing a jungle theme this week. They both LOVED it and were cracking up the whole time. It was really cute to watch!

DD is doing well on her reading instruction. We are on lesson 70 of OPGTR and she is loving being able to read things with the silent E, as well as -th, -sh, -ch, -tch, -ck words (amongst others). She is reading EVERYTHING!

I've been carefully watching DS. He has been recognizing a ton of letters and their sounds lately, so I've been casually doing an evaluation to see what he does (and doesn't) know. He's been playing with magnetic letters a lot more lately. He also loves to play with flashcards and usually chooses dinosaur flashcards, but he's been choosing phonics and rhyming word flashcards for the past week or so. :)

That's all for now! Talk to you all again soon!

My baby is here!!! (and getting back into the swing of things)

My sweet baby has arrived! On Sept 27th (Sunday) right before 10 in the morning, we welcomed a baby son into our family! :) I had a great homebirth, followed by a bummer of a hospital transfer for me (retained placenta or amniotic sac caused some gnarly bleeding), but we were back home by Monday! The kids stayed with my mom on Sunday and Monday and came back that night... it's been great! The baby is very peaceful and mellow and rarely cries or fusses! We are totally in love!!!

That said, we have had the opportunity to get some lessons in since we've been home. DD has completed about 10 assignments since last week which is great! We've had a good time sort of taking it easy and trying to get into it. We've been working on finishing up the Week 12 assignments as well as digging into the Week 13 stuff.

We just did half of our first reading lesson this week and I plan to finish that up before bedtime and maybe get her to do a page from Explode the Code as well. I don't want her to get behind on her phonics instruction!! I will say, though, that even though we haven't been working on reading formally, she's been reading ANYthing and EVERYthing all over the place! She's also been reading to me and DS from her phonics readers of her own initiative. It's been awesome to watch that!!

I hope to get back into the swing of things slowly but surely! DH is going back to work part time this week and full time the next week, so I hope to kind of get a groove going between now and then! So far I think we'll be utilizing the afternoon when oldest DS takes a nap and youngest DS will probably be napping as well. :) This seems to work best because I can give my undevided attention to her.

OH! One more thing. DS apparently knows about half of the alphabet letters AND their sounds! I guess that Letter Factory DVD has come to the rescue again! I'm amazed and what he shows me when we look at an alphabet book. He'll point to the letter, tell me what it is, say it's sound, and tell me a word that begins with it! What a smartie!!! I can't wait to see what else he pulls out of his hat! He's also picked up on almost all of the colors and shapes without direct instruction as well! Hooray for older siblings!! :) I also caught him doing a drawing today. He told me it was Barney - and the figure had a head, 2 arms, 2 legs, feet, and hair! It's exciting to see him develop and change and learn so rapidly. I'm thinking potty training is coming up now! I hope to have him trained by his 3rd birthday (in January).

Talk to you all soon!