A Rant About the Kindergarten Checklist Pin

Okay Mommy friends. You might remember this post  where I shared some of the learning goals for Savannah between now and next year when she starts school. Well. In that post I had a pretty little checklist that I thought other Moms would find helpful so I pinned it.

The response has been overwhelming. Thank you to anyone that pinned, liked or shared this pin with a friend. I really appreciate it. The amount of people that "liked" this pin outweigh the naysayers and negative nancies. However, I would be lying if I told you I wasn't confused about some of these comments.

For starters, I would consider myself a good "Mommy friend". Meaning that I'm not critical of what my friends or other Moms choose to do with their kids. I have friends with kids in private school, public school and I have friends who homeschool. All of them made the decision that they felt was best for their child. Now. While I may joke with my friends about things (like how many of them think I should continue to homeschool and I already know I'm not 'bout that homeschool life long term - at least I feel that way now - things could change…) I don't ever make them feel like their decision is wrong. 

That's just not how I get down. If you like it, I love it. If you want to teach your child everything from the basics to multiplication and how DNA works all before Kindergarten - good for you. If you only want to cover the basics with your kid - good for you. And lastly, if you don't want to teach your child anything before they start school then do you boo but that's not how I operate.

As a stay at home Mom I feel that I would be doing my children a disservice if I didn't at least try to give them a stronger foundation for learning. I am home with them everyday. Everyday we have an opportunity to learn something. Sure we still play and have lots of fun but in my house education comes first. It always will. So, there's no point in waiting until they start school for them to learn that. They need to know that now. Those are the expectations we have for our children. 

I strongly believe that a child is capable of learning anything as long as their is someone willing to teach them. That willing person also has to believe that the child is capable of learning. He or she will also need tons of patience and a little time. 

I didn't create that pin to make anyone feel inadequate about their own decisions. I made it for parents like me that want to expose their child to as much as possible. Learning can be fun and is a great way to bond with your child. We are our children's first teachers. I will always push my kids to go above and beyond what the standard is. That is what you can expect to find here. 

Be a good Mommy friend and support what your fellow Moms are doing. This is the last time I will address the Kindergarten pin (here, on twitter and my email). Be comfortable enough in your decisions to not be swayed, upset or critical of what someone else is doing. 

Before I go I also just want to encourage everyone to not ever come for Savannah's (or BabyM's) mind again unless it sends for you. I would hate for you to meet "Ratchet Mommy". She isn't about being politically correct for the internet and I don't think she knows Jesus. 

Thanks again for all the positive support. It means more than you know!

Preschool at Home: Learning to Read at Home

I have decided that our main learning objective for the summer will be reading and handwriting. As you know I am constantly trying different things to find the right fit for Savannah and I. I also use all this research to form a blueprint for BabyM's learning path too. Of course, different kids respond to different things but at least by the time he is ready to learn to read I'll have a better road map for teaching him.

While doing a search on Amazon I came across this book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. The title alone peaked my interest. The promise states that all you need is twenty minutes a day everyday for 100 days and you and your child should have a nice foundation for reading. That seemed right up my alley. I can do twenty minutes everyday.


This book has been amazing. Not only does it teach your child how to sound out words but it also focuses on reading comprehension and handwriting. I did things kind of backwards with Sav. I taught her the alphabet and each letter's phonetic sound then I taught her sight words. I wish I had found this book before we did sight words. It hasn't really hurt her but I see now where it would have been better to use this book to teach her how to take the phonetic sounds she knew and turn them into words with these lessons. 
Hopefully I am saying this all clearly, LOL…
Anyway. I highly recommend this book if you are a parent that needs a road map. The book tells you exactly what to say to your child. It doesn't get much easier than that. It is such a joy to see Sav sounding out words and actually reading. We are only about a quarter of the way through the book and I am really pleased with her progress so far. After her lesson we sit and read a book together. She reads to me and I help her when she asks me to.
Has anyone else heard of this book? Have you used it? What did you think about it?
*I am not a teacher. I am not in the education industry. I'm just a Mom teaching my child at home. I did NOT get paid for this review. I purchased the book myself.*

Preschool at Home: Reading Resources (Sight Words)

I have often found that when people know how to do something, like sewing or doing hair, they are often not interested in teaching other people how to do it. Some may not even be willing to share how they learned. That's so funny to me. It's like they don't want anyone else to learn how to do something they're good at. They may even tell you that they'll be more than happy to teach you or share the info but they never follow through on that…

Well. As I have said before, I am a girl's girl. If I know something and I think it can help you I am going to share it. If I see that something has worked for my daughter or son I will be more than happy to share that with you. Why not? Sharing is caring and at some point I know I'll need someone to care for me and mine.

Today I am going to share some of the resources I have found online to make introducing Savannah to reading a breeze. We first started off by learning letters and their phonetic sounds and then we moved to sight words. I am not a teacher or educator of any sort. I am fumbling my way through teaching my daughter. I try different things until I find what works. So please consider all of that when you are reading these preschool posts. I'm just sharing our journey and I am not trying to come off as an expert at all.

Teaching Sav the sight words extremely boosted her confidence in reading. She even sounds out words a lot better too. We still have a long way to go but I think we're off to a great start. My little lady should be reading by her birthday and that was my goal for 2014. With that said, here are all 220 of the non-noun sight words sub-divided into five levels.

I like making my own flashcards. Since Savannah already knows many of these I'll be making cards for the words we still need to work on. If you visit this site you can download bingo cards to go along with the sight words. That's another fun way to help them learn. You may also remember that we like playing "musical words" or "word hop". I lay all the cards out on the floor and I have Savannah hop to the word I call out or I play music, she walks around, when he music stops she has to pick a word and tell me what it is. Very fun!

Did you find this helpful? I'll continue to share stuff as we find what works for us. Feel free to share and pin!

Preschool at Home: Kindergarten Preparation

Now that we've gotten into a better schedule centered around learning I thought it would be a good idea to make a list of everything I wanted to teach Savannah before she starts school next year. This is my last school year having her at home and I want to make sure she is prepared for her first day of school.

This list is based off what Sav already knows and what she still has to learn. I'm pretty sure there are some things that I may have forgotten so I'll do an updated list and share it if I need to. I am still really loving the Preschool Prep Company's literacy tools. She's on their level 3 sight word reading books now. As we go through each book she gets better at sounding out words. It's been so neat watching her become a little reader.

I really need to do a lot better about teaching her numbers and math. I am a word person and I naturally gravitate towards books and writing. I plan to start alternating our lessons. One day we'll do Reading/Writing and the next day we'll do Counting/Math. That's my plan between now and next August when she starts school.

What do you think of this list? Anything I missed? Feel free to pin and share if you'd like!

Preschool at Home: Upcoming Review

I have exciting news to share!

Savannah and I have been invited to review K5 learning! As you know, I've been working with her to build strong reading and math skills. I'm excited for the opportunity to review this online program. Her literacy skills are really growing so this could not have come at a better time. To be honest, I'm hoping it will help us get a better handle on where she is with math and numbers. I'm not a math person so I am looking forward to utilizing another resource to help us.

Stay tuned for the review coming soon!

K5 Learning has an online reading and math program for kindergarten to grade 5 students. I've been given a 6 week free trial to test and write a review of their program. If you are a blogger, you may want to check out their open invitation to write an online learning review of their program.

Preschool at Home: Learning Sight Words

Now that the holiday season is over we are getting back to our routine. Slowly but surely. For Christmas Savannah received a literacy set that focuses on sight words. I will share the set and my review on it in a separate post. It came with DVDs and books. We've started using it but I want to use it a little more before I do a review here.

Anyway. While we were watching the video and reading the books I was trying to think of other ways to get her to recognize her site words. Part of learning to read is recognizing these words without having to figure them out. Since repetition is everything  I thought it would be fun to make large flashcards that can be used in several different ways. This way, not only is she learning to recognize her words but she's also having fun. Double win. Go me.

In this particular picture I put the words down on the floor, called out a word and had her bring the word to me. She really enjoyed this. Savannah thought it was so fun to look for words. She starts a literacy class in a couple weeks and I can't wait to see her turn into a little reader.

The kit that she received for Christmas says that you can start as early as 15 months. When Sav was that age I was teaching her the baby book of 100 words. It didn't include these type of sight words but I think I will start early with BabyM. When you know better, you do better, right?

What do you think about this idea? Have you started doing sight words with your little one?

Preschool at Home: Using What You Have

Savannah is finally starting to feel better. She had no fever today and she was playing as usual. I didn't have an activity planned for us today. I was expecting her to still be a little sick. She asked me if we could do "homework" and that's when I knew she must be feeling a lot better.

So. I pulled out her workbook and we did a few pages. She then requested to do numbers. This made me happy because we really need to focus on her numbers. My focus has been on her letters, writing and phonics and because of that we haven't really focused on counting/numbers as much.


After completing a few pages, I remembered an activity we had done with her class. The teacher had us doing simple addition using candy. Since Sav loves marshmallows I added those to some m&ms. We counted from zero to twenty a few times.



Then we sorted the treats and counted them.  This was a fun activity. It was quick and luckily I had somethings in the pantry. We had previously decorated Christmas cookies so I just pulled the candy and marshmallows from there.


You could do this activity with anything you have that your child likes. You could use chopped fruit or nuts. Another cool idea would be to use colored pasta. My point here is to use whatever you have on hand. Everything doesn't always have to be so thought out and perfect. As long as your child is learning and you both are enjoying it that's all that really matters.

What do you think? Isn't this so easy? I love getting ideas from Savannah's teacher during class and using them at home.

Preschool at Home: Christmas Crafts

It has been really hard staying on our learning schedule with family in town. We have always used workbooks but I have a new appreciation for them now. When I don't have time or the opportunity to do full blown lessons with her it's great to whip out one of these workbooks. We can do a couple pages in a few minutes. I like that because it keeps us from totally abandoning our learning efforts while we have so much going on at home.

We normally always do some type of learning lesson before we start our craft. Today we did the workbook before moving on to some fun Christmas crafts.

I found a pin on Pinterest that used popsicle sticks to make ornaments. I found these colorful sticks at the Dollar Tree and we used super glue to make them hold their shape. She decorated them with glitter after they dried.

I also thought it would be fun to make a Rudolph face. For this quick and easy craft we used a paper plate, eyes, puffy ball (for nose) and pipe cleaners. I also used a hole punch to make the holes for the "antlers" but you don't have to. The pipe cleaners should poke right thru the plate. Savannah curved the cleaner in a U shape before I poked it thru the plate. Rudolph's smile came out pretty nice. 

Once we were done I felt like our face didn't look like a reindeer. I grabbed a brown marker and filled his face in. It made him look so much better. I would recommend wrapping your plate with a paper bag or painting your entire plate brown if you decide to do this. Hindsight being 20/20 I guess I could have cut off the white edge. Maybe next time (LOL)...

What kind of crafts have you been doing with your little ones to get into the holiday spirit?

PreSchool at Home: Mixing it Up

Today I thought I'd share some of the other activities we do to create days full of learning. I have recently figured out that chopping up activities and offering different learning opportunities throughout the day really work well for Savannah. It keeps her from getting bored with what we're working on. 

Another thing that I like about this new way of offering activities is that it limits her "free" time. There really isn't much time for TV when we're both actively engaged in an activity together. Now. I know for some people you're wondering how I can do other things if I'm so glued into this new way of learning. The truth is much of it is self directed by Savannah. I set up the expectation that we're going to do something and then she does it independently for the most part. 

While she's working on the Starfall site or doing a page in her workbook, I'm cooking. When she's doing her phonics board in her room, I'm folding laundry. It's a great way to multi task. I can get things done while she's learning. It's great. 

Here we are together working with her phonics board...

Other activities that we've been adding to our day include playing the matching game, playing alphabet bingo and she's recently really taking a bug interest in cooking.

She received this alphabet bingo card during her weekly PreSchool class and she's been playing with it ever since. 

And here she is in her kitchen. I've been letting her help me in the kitchen more since she seems to have a genuine interest in cooking. I think I'm going to let her be my little sous chef when I make the baby's food this weekend. She's going to love that.

By sharing how we've been filling the day I hope it's giving you more ideas. Does anyone have any ideas for me? I'm always open to trying new activities!

PreSchool at Home: Finger Paint Flashcards

We have officially started adding more hands on activities to our routine. We have always played learning games and read books but I wanted to start introducing Savannah to Pre-K skills. I want to make sure she can hold a pencil, use scissors properly and listen to instructions for activities.

Today I thought it would be fun for her to make some number "cards". I have been collecting paper bags from the grocery store so we used that to make our cards. I cut down the center of one side to make to strips of paper.

I then cut the bottom of the bag off to make a paint holder. Save the rest of your bag for another activity later.

I then cut the two strips into six squares or "cards".

As we went through the numbers I wrote the number out. I then showed her how to write the numerical version of the number. Then it was her turn to write the number. For the tougher numbers I made dots and had her connect them.

On the other side of the card I wrote the number out again and had her paint the appropriate number of dots on the card.

She used the left over paint to make a picture. She enjoyed herself. Today we made cards for numbers one through six. We'll work with these cards by placing them around the house. When she sees a card I'll have her do one of the following things: -Count up to that number. -Count as high as she can starting from that number. -Tell me what comes before and after the number.
From what I've read it is important to have children prepared to work with numbers one through twenty before they start kindergarten. What do you think of this activity?