January Update

The past few months have been busy around here. We've been trying to move into our home/construction zone, as well as homeschooling, working and of course celebrating the holidays. We were able to take a trip to visit my family and Arden loved hiking and exploring their property.

During this time Arden also turned 18 months old. She can read at least 50 words, including the top 30 Dolch sight words. She also routinely speaks in 5-7 word sentences. A few examples are "Momma, put the shoes on me" or "Daddy! Put your hand down!". She is quite opinionated and enjoys telling us what shoes or clothes she'd like to wear as well as how she'd like her hair done. She also loves pretending to "talk to Grandma" on her phone and "cooking pizza" with her Melissa and Doug Pizza kit she got for Christmas.

She has started to enjoy doing some "school" while her brothers do the same. She enjoys drawing in her Kumon coloring book. A normal day for her learning-wise would include a lesson of Little Reader in both English and French, a lesson of Little Musician, some flashcard review and lots of read alouds. A few days a week she will watch "Meet the Sight Words", "The Letter Factory", or "Suzy" a piano DVD which is a her favorite.

We also have been practicing counting. We like to make it more exciting by combining it with activity, such as counting the stairs while we climb or counting and then jumping into Mom and Dad's arms.

 We have begun to work on reading books. A few we have started include the Peter and Jane Keyword books and the Meet the Sight Words books. Although she should be able to read the books, and most of the words are words she knows she still is working on the fluency required to read them in series. At this time she will just read individual words as I point to them.