Exciting events

Oh, I just can't wait to share this. Tabitha sounded out her first word today! We hadn't done our word cards for several days, so today we started our lesson time with them. I pull the pictures off the poster and lay them on a chair. Then I slowly sound out each word while running my finger under the letters. Then the girls get to find the picture and add it to the poster. Our Pp words are penguin, pumpkin, puppy, peanut, pig and pan. Today I asked Tabitha to sound out "pan." She got it!! I was so excited. Then she did it later for daddy. :)

The second exciting event was the arrival of our first postcard from the postcard exchange. We got a postcard from Indiana. I have yet to do the map with the girls. We are going to review our town map from early in the summer, then I am going to show the girls a map of our area from mapquest that has a route laid out that we take occasionally, then a map of Pa, before showing them where Pa is on the USA map. That is the plan anyway. We did quite a bit on our penguin lapbooks today, so I decided to let them watch a Baby Einstein video we got out of the library instead of going into the map lesson.

If you would like to join us in the postcard exchange we would love to have you participate. We have sent out 3 postcards so far. Here are the rules again:

Anyway, if you want to join the fun, here's what you need to do:

1. Simply leave me a comment letting me know you're interested and I in turn will be in touch via email to exchange our mailing addresses.
2. Agree to "pay it forward" - i.e. send a postcard back to me. And, if you're interested, post about this on your own blog and get others involved, too. If you do, please include a link to my blog, thank you.
3. When selecting your postcards, choose ones with geographical pictures or images of things specific to where you live.

Nn Continued

Well, I planned on continuing Nn this week, and we did! On Monday we decorated the number nine with 9 noodles. I have found the white glue since the last time I tried to do a counting lesson, so we had 9 dots of glue visible for the girls to put their noodles on. Before I realized it, even Amelia had her noodles placed on the glue dots. She is loving doing these crafts!

Tuesday was play group, so we didn't have time for a project. But on Wednesday we made neckties for our letter/sound book. I found the idea at the dltk website. I used some scrapbooking paper I have on hand. We used plain colors for the shirt and a coordinating design for the tie. After I had everything cut out and ready we began by drawing a line down the middle and gluing on 5 buttons (Tabitha is obsessed with the number 5).

Then they glued the collars on and the tie with the knot as per the directions at the website.

On days when we didn't have appointments we started by looking at our word cards and putting our pictures on the poster. Usually I will say the word slowly and run my finger under the word. Then I have Tabitha say it fast (something I learned from the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Siegfried Engelmann). I show them the picture and they find the matching picture to hang on the poster. It sure is nice to be back to doing our lessons the "right" way.

And here is the way the poster is supposed to look:

We also read the poem "The Night Will Never Stay" by Eleanor Farjeon, one of the poems suggested at the letter of the week website. We also read "The Best Nest" by P.D. Eastman. Unfortunately our other book didn't arrive in time to really enjoy for the week, though we will still read "The Napping House" by Audrey and Don Wood.

And surprisingly we were able to find nectarines this time of year at our local store to eat for snack. They were a little hard and not so sweet and juicy, but Tabitha, at least, enjoyed them (5 pieces at a time). I cut them into slices, and by the time she was done she had eaten the entire nectarine herself! Amelia got a little ahead of me and started eating before I could get it cut.