Let it Snow

We had our first significant snow fall of the season yesterday with a full 25-30cm. Public schools were canceled because the roads weren't yet plowed.
Well, we still did our school work this morning, but spent the afternoon playing in the snow. My daughter is definitely a winter baby, she goes nuts when it snows until she gets to go out and play. So of course we spent the afternoon outside.

Well, I guess we better get the cross country skies out. Guess I will have to put off teaching her downhill skiing until next winter :-) (see here for an explanation)


Beth

Reading Can Be Fun

One concern I had when beginning to homeschool was how to go about teaching my Monkey to read. Even though she has always seemed to somehow learn so much just by living life; she had showed no interest what so ever in learning to read. Thankfully the right tools have come along at the right time and my DH is doing great with her reading.
First of all, thanks to Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for her You Can Read program that she offers for free. My Monkey loves the sheets that go with each unit. I have then taken paint chips and wrote the sight words on the chips that she uses for review and for spelling practice.

Here is Monkey using the word tiles in the unit to spell her words for her Giant Word Book that we are working on since we are in a tiny house and don't have the space for a Word Wall. I then laminate each page once it is full of sight words that she knows, and she loves referring back to it to show Daddy what she knows.

Of course sight words alone aren't enough to teach her to read. Luckily, the Time 4 Learning program she has been using has a phonics course in the language arts curriculum. Now, there are definitely some negatives to using a computer based education, one of which is what I like to call the "fun factor". So along with the phonics on the computer, we then do a craft for the letters covered that week.

I always try to make things as hands on and fun as possible. I don't always get to do as much of this type of thing as I would like because I also work 30-40 hours each week. But we always do our best and as long as she is learning, having lots of fun, and is loving learning, then I must be doing something right. Right?

Thanks
Beth

Wordless Wednesday

The One Box Wonder

In a matter of 3 days, this box went from hideaway, to house, to boat, and to airplane. I love how their imaginations work!