I'm like the Golden Corral of the blogging world...

I've got a little bit of everything tonight and none of it is that great. I know, I know. I'll be here all night :)

First...I have just barely dipped my toe into the waters of homeschooling. One of my biggest fears since deciding to homeschool has been that I will be responsible for teaching abbey and alivia to read. That is serious. I mean, if you don't get that right, you are up a creek without a paddle. Ainsley learned to read in Kindergarten. I have wondered if I could get away with sending them all to Kindergarten so that they could learn to read with the help of a reading expert. And then I could take over. But Abbey had a different plan. She has been driving me crazy (in a good way) with questions like, "How do you spell..............What sound does this make.......what does this word start with...what does t, h, e, spell,....and my all time favorite, "You tell me what this book says and then I will read it."

So, what the heck. She's ready, I've got a book. Let's see what happens. And she is doing AWESOME!!! We have really been working on it for a couple of weeks and she is able to read some very beginner level books. In case you are curious...this is what I am using and what I think about it...

"Teach Your Child to Read In 100 Easy Lessons" - I know a
few people who have used this book and really like it. I think it is pretty popular right now. It is phonics based,lessons are about 15 minutes long, and it is scripted out. Like, tells you EXACTLY what to say. For someone who was nervous about this endeavor, that was a good thing. However, I tried using this book with abbey a few months ago and followed it word for word, and it was BRUTAL. She was bored, I was bored, and there is this rhyming section in each lesson that I just never got the hang of. And I had every word I was supposed to say right in front of my face. So, I put reading lessons on hold. Then when she started showing interest again we got it back out. I'm doing it totally different now. I don't stick to the script. In fact, we can usually do 2 lessons in the time it was taking to do one. That is due to the fact that we skip a lot of stuff. Like the rhyming game that neither one of us understood, and the writing section, and anything else that gets to repetitive. I use it as a guide as to which letter to introduce next, I love their method of sounding things out, and I like the way they teach the rules.

The other book in the picture (Reading Skills) is just your basic letter recognition, and letter sound workbook. But Abbey LOVES to color and it has a lot of coloring pages in it. So that is my way of giving her a little bit of a reward at the end of a lesson. She gets to color, but it is also reinforcing a letter or sound we just worked on.

And finally, the Bob books. I love these. They were recommended in "The Well Trained Mind" and they are great. I love them because they are about as simple as you can get but they are still in book form. We are talking one word sentences. Mat. Mat sat. Cat. Cat sat. Cat sat on Mat. You get the idea. But Abbey loves them.

Second...

Every monday night we host a high school bible study at our house. One of my friends brings her kids to the bible study and then she watches my kids so that I can sit in the bible study. They usually just hang out in our room and watch a movie. Well, tonight was no different. They were watching Tangled. Ainsley is a little bit afraid of a few parts in that movie. I had warned my friend, C, that Ainsley might leave the room or act scared. After bible study, I asked how it went. C said, "They did great! But Ainsley was going in your shower during the scary parts." Well, that in itself was funny enough, but then I walked by the shower and saw this....


That my friends, is The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Just a little light reading while she waits for the scary part to be over in Rapunzel.

Third...






The girls had their annual art show at preschool. They always decorate cookies for the parents. But who are we kidding? I was lucky to get these pictures before the girls inhaled them :)


Hope everyone had a great Monday! :)