Progress and a Lesson On Being an Example

I'm really not going to blog every day about homeschooling.  Keeping track of it on my free tracker program is enough for me, but I like to preserve my pictures when I remember to take them.  I know the lighting is awful and the pictures were taken on my camera phone, so the quality is not great. But I have documented my work, so there!

Ms A is learning about the letter C, the sound it makes, and so on, so today, we made this paper bag cat craft. I already had white paper bags and the girls insisted on their cats being white. OK.  No problem. Print off the templates, let the girls color, and away we go. Ms. A named her cat "Abby" and insisted he was a boy.  Great job, kiddo.  Ms. Z named her cat "Belle."  That's what she names nearly every female animal right now.  That's cool.  She likes the name.  And may I take a moment to brag?  Yeah, she's totally reading her McGuffey Primer stories so well!  She needs a little encouragement at times, but she's doing great.  And I don't mean that in the "my kid is SO above average and I'm going to rub it in your face" sort of way. She's having a good time and she's excited to learn.  She definitely has problems with certain letter combinations and sight words are not really her thing, especially when they try and change things up like "cat" and "cap." But a month ago, she couldn't read for real.  She would memorize stories, which is still a great step in learning, and she would pretend to read scriptures (like she's doing right now), but she wasn't actually reading words.  Please excuse the spilled over laundry basket in the background.  My kids were making memories before I invited them to start school. ;)

Obviously she has a couple good examples to follow of people who like to read.  I read as often as I can and I tend to let other important things fall to the wayside while I'm reading.  If you're an avid reader (or love one), you know what I mean.  My husband has also been wrapped up in books lately.  So they girls have been really seeing people reading and loving it and talking about what we read.  This is SO important: if you want to have a child who loves to read, let them see you enjoy reading.  It's true in many areas of life.  If you want a child who loves to help, always (or nearly so) happily accept their help and don't criticize their work (at least not while they're small and learning).  If you want a child who is kind and respectful, use respectful words and actions, be a courteous driver, and generally serve people. On the other hand, if you can't figure out why your kids yell, tell people to "get out of the way," or refuse to share, consider how you treat them. Then consider how you treat other people.  It's not a cure-all, but if we want to make our world a better place, we need to start with ourselves and our children.  Courtesy and kindness really are contagious.  Give it a try. :)