reading

My kiddos are huge fans of popping pop beads, stringing beads, connecting nuts and bolts, and just sticking things together. Not only are these great activities to help develop kiddos’ fine motor skills, but it shows how connecting–putting things together–is …

By sharing our love of words and talking about new and exciting words, we are teaching our children to become Word Conscious. Word Consciousness is an integral component of language development and one of the early predictors of success in …

Many of us have taken a moment now and again to encourage our children to find pictures in the sky on a cloudy day, right? No matter if it’s a turtle, a shoe, a bunny, or a Cheerio, it always …

      It seems that Maddy’s leveled out a bit with her reading this year. She’s doing great with her spelling, she’s made huge strides with decoding, but she’s stuck on one particular level and needs to stretch her …

Who doesn’t need to laugh a little more during this sometimes-way-too-stressful holiday season? I surely do–and there’s nothing like a super-corny, incredibly simple knock-knock joke to get me smiling and my kids rolling. And I mean rolling.  On the floor.  In …

      Holiday time is here, and things are sure to be nutty around our house–and everyone else’s–for the next few weeks. Although I know it’s going to be hard to sneak in a little bit of learning each …

    Read-alouds are the perfect time to sneak in a little bit of learning, whether you’re talking simple reading comprehension strategies, concepts of print, or word recognition. Tonight, we rocked our nighttime read-aloud with a few more thought-provoking and …

    We’re pet sitting for the next few days, and Maddy, Owen and Cora are loving it. Nothing cuddly or furry, but these little guys are certainly entertaining if you ask my three kiddos. We’re fish-sitting, actually, for what …

    Lately, we’ve been so busy. May flew by, like it always does for us–a blur of end-of-school activities, yard work, picnics, park dates, and now pool time. So I’ve tried to sneak in what I can, when I …

Today, on this rainy, cool, gray Monday, we rocked it with an oldie but goodie:Sunny-Rainy Grid Games. Or Rainy-Sunny Grid Games, depending on how you’re feeling or the weather outside. We’ve played this game before, but not for a while, …

Thank you, ABC Exercise Cards, for giving us a fun and burn-some-steam kind of activity this afternoon! After a rainy weekend and another rainy–but exciting!–morning at the College Park Aviation Museum with Owen’s class, I found that by the afternoon, …

    As I’ve said very recently, letter reversals are quite normal for emerging readers and writers. But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with helping our kiddos remember the tough ones. Back in January, I saved a Word World episode because …

Lately all Maddy wants to do is read, read, read, which is fine with me. She’ll read to me, my husband, and she’ll read to Owen or Cora. She’ll read to anyone who will listen. And it’s great that she …

Several times over the last few weeks, Maddy, Owen, and I have played Sight Word Memory. It’s an easy game, fun, and certainly worthwhile. And the cool thing about it is that it can be as long or short as …

    The Gardener, by Sarah Stewart and illustrations by David Small, is honestly one of the most beautiful children’s books I have ever read. The story takes place during the Depression and is told through letters that Lydia Grace …