Reading is improving!!

We are so organized this morning, that we finished a lesson of math, reading, and art all before 9:30!! I guess E must be a morning person and while she's eating her breakfast at the table in the morning is a great time to corner her and get some phonics slipped in.

She was so proud of herself because she read a whole story by herself today and was reading so much faster than before:

A Cat
from the Little Angle Reader book 'A'

Ann has a cat.
Ann's cat is Nat.
Nat sat.
Ann can pat Nat.
Ann has a pan.
Nat ran to Ann.
Nat had ham.
Nat has a rat.
Nat ran.
Nat can nab a rat.

... I know, it's not too exciting of a plot line, but what do you expect when you're limited to three letter words with one vowel?

In math, we learned about 2+2 and 3+3, and in art we learned about warm and cool colors, and how to draw things that are overlapping.... we just started with balloons, but I think I can extend this to drawing her princesses: the clothes overlap their bodies, so you only draw the dress, not the whole body. We'll see if she can get this concept. I've learned this year that so much of this stuff is developmental and if you just leave it alone for a few months, she 'gets it' so much easier without any work from a frustrated teacher. (this lesson I learned first when I was an overambitious wanna-be homeschooler trying to teach a two year old how to count and read numbers on paper).

p.s. Z is finally learning how to hold a pencil the right way. HWT really helped me teach that. (pretend your hand is an alligator and the alligator eats the pen). He loved that, and then proceeded to draw me a picture of an alligator. so cute!