Summer School!

This summer, I have been trying to be super intentional about how I spend my time with Kendall in the mornings when Cooper is napping. She is so great about sharing and spending time with Cooper and she rarely gets frustrated with her, so I have wanted to make sure and really take advantage of being able to give her all my attention while Cooper is asleep.

I told Kendall at the first of the summer that we were going to start "playing school." She loved that idea. She totally thinks it is a game we play - she packs her backpack, "drives" to school, and comes in and sits at her table with me, her teacher. :) Then when she is finished, she tells me goodbye and drives back home. Sometimes she is finished after about ten minutes, sometimes it's longer, when I tell her we're done for the day. I have been trying to be super casual and easy-going about it because I don't want her to get frustrated or not enjoy what we are doing.

The main things we have been working on are letter id, letter sounds, numbers, and writing. I bought a great workbook at an office supply store at the beginning of the summer and we have been working through it. It started out just having her practice tracing lines, preparing her for tracing letters. She does a really good job of taking her time and staying on the lines, and holds her pencil well. We also have a set of flashcards that we have been using to practice id and sounds, and she almost has all of them down!

I think one of her favorite things we have done has been to label things around her room. She picks something out, and I have her help me sound out the word and I write it on an index card. Then I put tape on it and she gets to go put it on whatever the word is. (This was very hard for me at first...the letting her go tape the word on...she does it a little crooked. But she is so proud of getting to do that part, so I have resisted the urge to come behind her and fix them. Aren't you impressed?) I need to take pictures of her room right now with all the words, but she loves them. We have labeled what is in her drawers, her books, lamp, closet, wall, window, chair, and lots more. I know these aren't words she will be able to read any time soon, but I think just having more print around is good for her. And one day when we were working on her letter flash cards, we got to "W" and she looked over at her sign that says "wall" and then said "w." So I can at least tell she is making connections!

Sometimes when we are playing school, we go to "Chapel with Mrs. Wendy." Mrs. Wendy is her for real chapel teacher at school, and so for this part we walk to mine and Randy's bedroom like she is in a line of kids and when she gets there I all of the sudden become Mrs. Wendy and I tell her a story from one of her children's Bibles. We read the story and then I ask her some questions about it, we sing some songs, and then we go back to "class" in her room.

This is another one of her favorite things to do - ABC Bingo. I spin and she tells me what letter we landed on and then she gets to see if she has it on her board. So fun! And great practice!

We have also done puzzles, colored, and she has been tracing over her name and other words we've been practicing. We work with her letter magnets on the fridge some, putting them in order, and she loves listening to her CD books too.

Today while Cooper was asleep we played outside some. (So thankful that our driveway is shaded! We weren't out there long...) She wanted to play with chalk, so I told her to practice writing her name, which she loved. She is getting so much better! Then I taught her how to play hop-scotch. We had never done that before, but she was so loving it and it even gave us a chance to practice her numbers!

She's not really so great about hopping in the one square with only one foot...but we'll get there.

So proud of her name!

And here are a couple of videos. The first one is of her counting and doing hop-scotch, and then the second one is her showing off the names of the people in our family.




Sorry for the super long post! I have been meaning to write some about what she's been learning lately, but just finally got around to it. I think it is just one of the most fun things of my whole life to get to teach Kendall, take advantage of teachable moments, and watch her learn new things. I never knew it was going to be this much fun!!!