Coop Week 2

Well despite some of the kiddos getting sick - overall week 2 was a great success. I amazed at how well the students are doing - picking their own work, really working at it and having fun. Yesterday I introduced a basting activity where kids transfer colored water from one dish to another with a baster. One of the little guys really loved it - he kept showing his mom what he was doing and he was all smiles. Another student kept telling me how "cool" everything was. It is really hard for them to just watch me demonstrate - they really want to get involved and do it all. Which is the point.

So, I think I have sort of figured out the language stuff for now. I am also reading through Reading Reflex again. It is a similar approach to Montessori - without the sandpaper letters and with cards instead of a "moveable alphabet". Reading reflex basically teaches that letters represent the sounds we make with our speech. Both methods focus on the sounds that the letter makes- not the name of the letters. This makes so much sense - but somehow the A, B, C song seems so popular it's hard to overcome. So children get confused - the letter c - see; however, its sound is cuh. So when we ask them to spell or read they have to go through the process of naming and then sounding - if we just teach the sounds - they just sound it and don't worry about the names.

I have not tried Explode the Code - which also seems to be very popular. Has anyone tried it? I have looked at Teach your child to read in 100 lessons - but it was too visually confusing for me. I do admit that I didn't try very hard.

So, I think it will take all of Christmas break for me to figure out how to teach the math section - but that's okay.

Is the library overwhelming?

Today Reading Rockets pointed me to another great resource Just One More Book. It seems to be similar to Trelease's read aloud handbook - but since it is basically a blog and podcasts it keeps up with current literature. One of my cousins gave me Trelease's book as a baby gift - it was a GREAT idea! She even put notes about what her family liked - a very nice and helpful personal touch.

Anyway, I haven't explored everything on the site - but it looks like you can search by author or by subject area. It is an act of passion and love by the people who collect all this information. So, if you are looking for new books this might be the place to start. This is the type of thing I might do if I wasn't doing so many other things. I'm glad someone out there is doing it for the rest of us.

Look what I can do

I mentioned that my mom was here last week. As she left she mentioned that little man would be able to do so much more when she came back (in just two weeks!). She was right. Here are some new things he is trying out:

1. Standing on his own - it was for split seconds but now it is a little longer
2. Sitting on his little potty - sometimes he will stay there, sometimes he won't
3. Trying to put tops onto his "dishes"
4. Rolling and throwing balls
5. Reaching and trying to open door knobs - he doesn't have enough leverage - yet
6. Turning on and off the lights - repeatedly

I am most excited (and freaked out) about the standing on his own. I think this means he will be walking soon and it is ALL down hill from there. I think once he can stand well our table tops will never be the same.

From 0 to 60

I can't believe it's been so long since I've blogged. My mom came into town last week and I took it easy for a while - so that's the zero. Now that the coop has started, my classes are still going and I have board meetings next week to prep for - so that's the 60. On Tuesday we had the parent meeting for the coop and it went really well. It is a more diverse group than I thought- which is GREAT. Many of the kids are right around the same age which is helpful.
Today was the first day of "school". Some kiddos got new backpacks, some took pictures for the day - I was surprised. They are all excited about school though. Overall the older students did very well. They seemed to enjoy the activities and catch onto some of the basic routines. I am realizing that our older kids are more advanced than I expected them to be - so I am playing catch up with that.
Two moms agreed to take care of the younger students. I think overall they had a good time except for the fact that little man spent most of the time crying because mommy wasn't paying attention to him. This is all part of the process I guess. The younger kids (18 months and under) are going to focus on baby signs, singing songs and some physical development activities (fun things to help baby stretch etc.). I am so thankful for these moms that are stepping up.
I hope to update weekly on how our coop is going.