New Reading Curriculum Came {Finally!} and Calendar Fun

After a THREE MONTH back order, Natalee's reading curriculum FINALLY came.  While I dislike starting it in the middle of our school year we are going to go ahead and begin.  We'll work on it through the summer so we are ready to start next year's lessons on time in the fall.  (That's my plan anyways!).  

This is the curriculum I fought and fought with myself over ordering because of the expense, however, in the end, my teacher brain and knowledge of my daughter's learning styles won out and her dad (of course, ever the supporter!), okayed the purchase. I used this Sing, Spell, Read and Write curriculum in the public school for my special learners with fantastic results and am excited to have it in the home!  In the future we will only have to purchase the workbooks for our next learners down the line...the readers, games, instruction booklets, etc., will not need to be repurchased (and the kit we bought was for kindergarten & year one).  Really, looking at it that way, this was an investment.  Of course, every school purchase we make is truly an investment in our children and we feel privileged to be able to choose our materials with freedom.

The first bit of the lessons will be mostly review, however I decided to do them because I want to make sure her knowledge of her letter sounds is STRONG before we move to blending and segmenting words, and her handwriting (although a willing writer!) can use just a little gentle shaping around the edges. Plus, as with all of our schooling, I take into account Natalee's attention span, and while wanting to help her grow it I do not want to frustrate her and lose my willing, excited little learner!!

The first page that we completed yesterday was writing her name on the line. I also threw into the lesson that only the first letter gets to be capital and the rest need to be lowercase.  She likes to write letters with strong, straight lines so sometimes changes what should be a lowercase to a capital to achieve that look & feeling (for example, changing lowercase 'e's at the end of her name to capitals).  I modeled for her on the first line, then she followed the example.

We also reviewed the letter sounds mat that they sent as an introduction to the song we will learn.  Never to be outdone, Xavier had his turn as well, and when finished proudly proclaimed, "I tan read now!" because of course we were doing reading!

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My cousin sent along a magnetic calendar to the kids and I introduced it this morning.  We have a big wall calendar and have gotten very lazy in completing it because we do a small calendar in our circle group time.  However, Natalee hates that we don't have one that's displayed on the wall because she like to keep track of what's coming up, what day it is, etc.

So, when our cousin offered this I thought it might be perfect to help Natalee keep track of what day daddy comes home, what special is coming up, etc.

We had a good time putting it together, although little brother may have been more hindrance than help. ;)