A trip to the zoo...

Mrs. R and Miss O looking at turtles

Feeding the birds....

Toddlers on a bridge...

Notice Ms. M's hand on her face..

There were chickens wandering around everywhere...

Feeding the goats

Mr. T's expression after he saw the goats

Miss O waiting in the stroller while we were petting goats

BOB Books... another great reading resource

I love BOB books! Last year a homeschool mom at my church told me about these, so when Miss M was nearing the end of her reading lesson book, I purchased the last set of BOB books, Set 5, at Borders and I am so glad I did. Miss M loves reading them to her brother and sisters! I think I will try to purchase the earlier sets to use with the other kids. Here is a little bit about them from their website:

How do Bob Books work? Bob Books work sequentially for children in the earliest stages of reading. The Bob Books Fountation Sets are for children who are ready to take the first steps into reading (see Is My Child Ready for Reading? and How to Use Bob Books for more information).

Set One • Beginning Readers is very simple so your child will have early success. With only four letters in the first book, your child can sound out all the words. This terrific confidence-builder means they are excited to try more.

Bob Books Set 2, Set 3, Set 4 and Set 5 build on the previous sets, with enough repetition so reading becomes comfortable and easy, and new material so the child stays interested. Numbering the books and boxes creates a sense of progress and accomplishment. The books themselves are sized perfectly for little hands. Children love the hilarious (and sometimes mischievous) stories and pictures.

If your youngster is not ready for reading, My First Bob Books build pre-reading skills. My First Bob Books • Alphabet builds something called phonemic awareness - the ability to hear and separate sounds - and tunes your child's ear to the sounds letters make. My First Bob Books • Pre-Reading Skills introduces shapes and patterns to build awareness of letter groups. This foundation sets the stage for the magical moment when reading begins.

The good news is that you don't have to know reading theory to use Bob Books. As you read the stories and talk about the books, your child is learning. So be silly, play with sounds and make it a game. You're having fun while teaching your child important reading and literacy skills that will last a lifetime. It's one of the best gifts you can give a child.

V is for Volcano

Today we used some leftover playdough, baking soda and vinegar to make a volcano! Miss M and Mr. T had a lot of fun watching it "explode."

Tooty-Ta

The kids love to sing this preschool action song called Tooty-Ta. The verses go something like this...Chorus: (Hands over head and clap) A tooty ta, A tooty ta. A tooty ta ta. A tooty ta, A tooty ta. A tooty ta ta. Thumbs up, elbows out, knees apart, bottom up, tongue out, eyes shut, turn around! Here are a few pics of the girls acting it out in the living room.

Mrs. J's favorite preschool things

Oops! I accidently posted this prematurely. I was trying to save it as a draft but it posted. So, I will keep working on it and update it when I am done

Favorite Preschool Things

Music: Debbie and Friends,

Dvd: Anything by Karyn Henley you can watch a youtube sample here and here. The kids have I Feel Like a Giggle and Down by the Station. What I really love her is how she uses things preschoolers understand and applies biblical principles to them. Like during the song about washing sins away, the kids in the video are washing their toys. And she talks about how we need to obey God just like how drivers need to obey stop lights and then sings a song about how the green says go and the red says stop. Right now, all 3 of the older kids love watching them. The kids got this dvd from Grandma Jones a few Christmas' a go and it has been watched soo many times! I even like the songs,

Bib

Video of Miss M reading

For the last few months, I have been teaching Miss M to read using this book. We are in the last week of the lessons and today Miss M completed lesson #97! She is doing great. We are going to celebrate her completion of this book later this week by going to Just Cupcakes! Today I used the camera on the laptop to record her reading. I was holding Miss E and so you can see her in a lot of the video. She is going to be 8 weeks tomorrow (and Miss M will turn 5 years old in 2 weeks from today!).

The story Miss M is reading today is called Bed Bugs - part 1!

Anderson Dairy

A couple weeks ago, we went with some friends from our MOPS group to the Anderson Dairy here in Vegas. We went on the Barnyard Buddies Tour and had a great time. There are no real cows here (the milk is trucked in daily from California) but there is a nice talking cow with a southern accent named Calci Um (see below). The tour shows how the milk and other products are processed and stored. So in the freezer section, there is a penguin display and a fog machine that creates a cold ambiance. This tour is great for preschool aged kids. The very best part of the tour is at the end where they give everybody a big bowl of ice cream! Both times we have went they have given us cookies and cream flavor. And the other great thing is the tour is free! Check out their website here for information about how to schedule a tour.

Miss O gets a little scared around animals, even if they are fake, so here she is with her fist in her mouth (I guess the thumb alone just wasn't going to do).
The freezer sections with penguins (above) and cold fog (below)

Deliciousness at the end of the tour!

Trike-a-thon

Every year, the preschool on base does a trike-a-thon to raise money for a charity (St. Judes I think). So the girls wore their exercise clothes and brought their helmets and had a great time. I think Miss M said she did 27 labs. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of Miss O because her group went at a different time then Miss M's.

Red, white and blue parade

April was the month of the military child, and so the girls' preschool had lots of fun events all throughout the month. These included many different fun dress up days, a spaghetti auction, an ice cream social and a parade. Below are some pictures of the fun red-white and blue parade on April 1st. All the classes (preschool and daycare) paraded down the street with streamers, it was fun! And many parents came out to see their kids. The girls had a blast.

Here are the girls with their homemade hats ready to goTheir two favorite teachers, Miss A and Aunt Nanny Miss O

Miss M in her Spokane shirt (we love Spokane!)

Even Mr. T wore red, white and blue. Here he is holding on to daddy's knee while watching the parade.

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

I have had a lot of people ask me lately about the book I am using to teach Miss M to read, so I thought I should do a blog post about it.

Miss M has always been a very verbal kid. She caught on quick to signing and to speaking. This summer I noticed she seemed very eager to learn to read, but since she is my first, I had no idea how to teach her to read. I really felt like there was a window of opportunity and if I didn't fill it soon, it would go away.

I began asking moms I knew what they had done when they had preschoolers. A lady by the name of Mary, who is a homeschooling mom at our church, told me she had done a lot reading to her kids (as much as an hour a day!) and used this simple book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. So I decided to check out this book and found it at our local Borders (the first place I looked). The title does a great job of describing it. The 100 lessons in the book are easy! We only spend 15-20 minutes on it a day and do 4-5 lessons a week. The book tells the parent what to say verbatim which is really nice since I have never taught anyone to read before. It also gives practical tips, such as correcting minor mistakes early with your kids so they don't continue to make them. Miss M has really excelled and I am so blessed to watch her learn. She just completed lesson 60!

Below are some pictures I took 2 weeks ago of the story she read, and the picture that accompanied it. Miss M found this story to be quite hilarious.

The picture that accompanied the story

We practiced writing letter P that day and here is the picture Miss M colored with P words

Miss O colored the D page while I did Miss M's reading lesson. This is the first time she colored in the lines. All coloring prior to this have been scribbles. It took quite a bit of concentration but she did it. And today she drew a picture of Mr. J and I and he had a head, eyes and a body!

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (Paperback)by Siegfried Engelmann (Author), Phyllis Haddox (Author), Elaine Bruner (Author)