Reading day

Today was really a fantastic day.  You know, aside from the thunder storms and torrential rain.  Seriously people, is it really the end of January?  Don't worry, we're supposed to get snow tomorrow despite it being 60 today and the kids playing outside with umbrellas.

I let the kids watch movies this morning because James was still recovering.  Then we went to the library for story for Carolyn.  I'm not sure that she likes this one as much as in Wauconda.  She was miffed at the end, because they each get to take a book off the cart and other kids were taking 2 so she didn't have much left to choose from.  I reminded her she already had a whole bag of books to check out, but that didn't seem to help.  She's very into everything being fair these days.  We came for lunch and naps.

After nap time is when things really took off.  Carolyn read a book to me while I finished up some work, and then started on a second one.  Then James woke up.  We snuggled for a while and then headed into the kitchen for snack.  While the kids ate they worked on some mazes.  When Carolyn was finished with her mazes, we brought out the umbrellas and I swept the floor while the kids played on the driveway.  Fantastic that I can see the entire front yard from in the kitchen.  And awesome that I have 2 kids that are well-behaved so they stay within their known boundaries.  They played outside until they heard thunder, so came in as I had asked.  While I finished sweeping the floor, both kids got out their journals.  Carolyn started to draw a picture and tell a story about my sister.  Her imagination is awesome.  I helped her with spelling some words, but she really was just verifying how to spell words.

Then Carolyn asked to work on reading.  She did some phonics pages while I cut out pieces for Bob book Set 1 #3.  She matched beginning sounds with pictures.  Then we worked through the activities for the book Dot.  She read the book with no help.  She spelled some words and interchanged letters.  We grouped some words and then rewrote the book with paper words.  And finally she did the word climb.  Check out "In Lieu of Preschool" on Teachers Pay Teachers for free downloads with the Bob books.  Carolyn is really liking it.  After finishing that she wanted to keep going, so we did some more phonics work sheets dealing with beginning and ending sounds like "ck", "sh" and "ch".  It's amazing to see how when she's ready to learn, she understands it all and moves effortlessly through the lessons.  She continued back to work after dinner until Jon came home and I had to go tutor.  While Carolyn was working on reading, James had his first experience with scissors.  He did pretty well, too.  Definitely needs some practice and seeing how he's not even 3 that's prefectly okay.  He enjoyed being able to do something similar to his sister since she was cutting for part of the reading activities.  So much for my plan to work on math today... haha.  That's what's great about preschool at home though, follow the kids' lead!

Watching Carolyn today makes me more nervous for sending her to school.  She's the type of kid that resists learning until she's ready.  But when she's ready she picks it up in minutes.  No repitition needed, she locks everything into the vault immediately.  We're in a great school district and she'll likely love being around more kids, but I'm truly afraid she is going to be absolutely bored to death.  I will try to talk school up and not let her know my feelings.  And we'll see how things go.  But with over 6 months before day 1 and her already reading pretty well, I'm not sure what she's going to learn.  Many will say socialization, but honestly, she's already fine with that.  I don't really want her learning bad habits from the other kids.  Time will tell I suppose!