Alyssa is 3 years and 7 months old

We don't do school time every single day at this point, but here are a few things we are doing. I plan to start VERY soon whether I am organized or not ... I have realized that I am the type to organize and reorganize over and over again. It will be a project that I am constantly working on and trying to improve as the year progresses. I tend to have too many organizational ideas and cannot afford to put it all together as planned due to finances. 

Language Arts

Alyssa independently read Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Jan Brett the other day. She continues to read MANY books on her own. I am so proud of her ... she struggled with a few words in the book which is to be expected at her age. She still has a LOVE for reading and enjoys school time. Still begs! She spent a whole hour reading aloud when she woke up this morning. She is participating in a summer reading program at the local library. They are giving bikes away to children that read the most. Unfortunately the documentation is limited ... so I am hoping parents will be honest. Alyssa wants the bike with the Barbie backpack on it ... she describes it to me on a daily basis.  She has known the basic sounds for all the letters for quite some time now. We are currently working on additional sounds. She has mastered many including the sounds for the letter "y." Her handwriting has improved and she enjoys writing short sentences on her whiteboard. Last night she wrote, "I Love mommy, and Daddy, and dogs."It was so cute! She has also been writing sentences that contain her sight words or word family words. She continues to use the whiteboard to write the numbers 1 through 20.  She stops at 20 for some reason even though she knows more numbers exist. I noticed the other day that she was explaining how to write the numbers as she wrote them on the board ... apparently she is playing teacher and I am the student. I LOVE it! Reading sight words seems to be pretty easy for her so we have been focusing on how to spell them.    

Math

She has been exploring all of my math manipulatives. She seems to be intrigued with learning addition lately. We are also playing lots of math games. She loves Dice in Dice Addition! I placed two die in a spill-proof paint container. She shakes the container and looks at the bottom to add the two numbers. She uses her abacus when she needs help solving problems. 

I know that we do more but I just wanted to touch base with my readers.

 

I made the choice to start using curriculums to cut down on planning time and time spent on the computer researching ideas and themes. I have made some recent purchases via Ebay.  I am currently preparing for the new school year. Alyssa and I have already tried several lessons from different curriculums and she is doing well with what I bought. I have some reservations, but will continue using them as long as she is interested and enjoying it. I hope to post our curriculum choices soon. I am also supposed to be receiving a Spanish curriculum to review in July.    

Speaking of reviews, I have been writing and editing my "candid" review for Time 4 Learning. So many things have happened since we started our trial month ... I am late posting it. My niece from New York visited me for a week, my husband went to the ER room after a ceiling fell on him while putting out a fire, and then he broke a tooth while eating dinner ... on the SAME day. During our trial, Alyssa was sick and we left for a week long vacation. 

I better start preparing lunch. I hope you are all doing well and would LOVE to hear from you. Have a GREAT day!

Tracey