Halloween Salt Dough

Basic Salt Dough Recipe:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup salt
1 cup warm water

Combine salt and water, and let sit for a minute or 2 to let salt dissolve. Add flour, and mix until dough starts to form. Knead with your hands in the bowl, or on a floured surface until a smooth dough has been achieved. Create project. Bake in a 200 degree F oven for 1-4 hours or until completely dry. Paint and embellish as desired!

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I split our dough in half, and rolled half with a floured rolling pin. Then used Halloween cookie cutters to make shakes of flying Halloween creatures (bats, witches, and ghosts.) I then used a straw to put holes in the Halloween shapes for hanging later. The other half of the dough I split between my kids for them to make pumpkins. (Note that since these are preschool and younger children, the pumpkins were solid and took longer to dry in the oven. Older children can roll our their dough and form it over a ball of aluminum foil to get their shape without using as much dough/ drying time.) I had each child remove a small piece of their dough, then roll the rest between their hands to create a ball shape. They place the ball on the table and made an indentation on top of the ball with their finger. Then used the small removed piece of dough, to attach as a stem. We baked these, then painted them orange with brown stems on a different day. After we painted the pumpkins, I provided Halloween colors of paint, and let the kids paint the cutouts. After they dried, we strung yarn through these, and tied them to baby hangers to hang as Halloween mobiles!

An unpainted salt dough pumpkin, and the painting underway!


Reagan's mobile


Adam's Mobile


Oh, and since we had the paint out, I let the kids paint pumpkins on canvas bags for Trick-Or-Treating! :-)

Halloween Craft Fun!

Starting last week we've been having a lot of fun with Halloween activities. We have been reading lots of fun Halloween books, and I've worked on coming up with several Halloween and fall themed crafts for the kids.

Last week we did drawings that we embellished with foamie Halloween stickers. Stickers are always a hit with the kids and they really enjoyed this one. I'm watching a friend's child, so she and Reagan had a great time doing this together, but before I could get a picture of Reagan work, Adam (who was napping at the time and missed the activity, got a little jealous, and tore all her foamies off!) Ugh. It was fun though, and there are letters in our set, so Reagan spelled out her name on her paper, and we helped the friend do that as well. Then the girls just had fun picking out letters, and naming them before adding them to their masterpieces.

On Friday we made salt dough for the first time! I rolled half and did cut outs with holes for hanging, and split the other half between the kids. Rob was home, so he helped out, and had a good time helping the kids make pumpkins out of their salt dough. I baked them, and we're planning on painting today! I'll post pictures of the salt dough, with a tutorial for our projects a little later. :-) On Friday we also made spiders out of egg cartons. I'll also post a tutorial for this simple and fun craft. :-)

One of Reagan's favorite Halloween books is The Biggest Pumpkin Ever. I think it especially resonates with her because we grew some of our own pumpkins this year. We had to stop by the hardware store for something on Saturday, and stopped to pick up some seeds for next year's vegetable garden (that we are already planning). So of course we had to get Big Max pumpkin seeds (they can grow to be 100 lbs or more!) Next year should be lots of fun, and maybe well get a prize winning pumpkin grown for the fair next year even.

Yesterday we did out first tap dancing class at home. Reagan has been very enthusiastic about this for awhile, but both pairs of shoes we had, were too small. Oma finally found a pair that would fit here, and they came in a package this week, so we were set to begin. Of course Adam wanted to dance to, and luckily one of those too small pairs fit him! The kids had a great time... even though they mostly just liked making a lot of noise. Reagan did get the general idea of some basic steps, and Adam tried very hard. I think well need quite a few more lessons before there's any level of mastery though. lol

Reagan of course, also sat down and did some work on her workbook, and confirmed for us that she can read all of her colors. She can do most activities in the preschool workbook without an instruction, but was reading what colors they wanted her to color specific things and doing it. She also spent a good amount of time in the morning sitting and reading Hop on Pop. She was actually reading it at first (and doesn't have it memorized- we've only read it once,) but then she got lazy and started doing it mostly based on memory and the pictures, rather than actually reading. But it's a great start! She really could read more by herself if she were willing to do it. It's too much work though. :-P

UPDATE

I keep promising that I'm going to keep up with this, and then keep falling off the wagon. :-( Thankfully, not updating the blog, doesn't mean that we haven't been learning anything! So here are some quick updates:

Adam: Counts to 10, knows most, if not all of his ABCs, and loves to sing along with the song.. his favorite songs are ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Bah Bah Black Sheep. Adam has also been developing more physical skills; gross motor skills at gymnastics, and fine motor skills building with Duplo blocks, and making lots of scribble pictures. He also loves to dance, and sing along to songs on the radio.

Reagan: What an explosion! She;s just learning to use stencils to draw things, and loves practicing this on her own all the time. The small shapes she draws have also helped her practice coloring in smaller spaces. There has been a lot more actual drawing recently too, and less scribbles, her favorite topics are animals, camping, houses, people, and rainbows. She LOVES doing her Brain Quest cards, but has been flying through the level 5 and 6 year old ones with such ease that we may have to find her a new set soon! She complained to me one day that her preschool workbook was boring and too easy, so I let her pick out a higher level one from our collection. She chose time and money. She still works on the preschool book, but is loving working on some more challenging stuff too. So far she can read all of the times on the hour on the clock, and can count with pennies, and pennies and one nickel. We're working on counting by fives so so can count more nickles, but she does it pretty well with a counting chart. Reagan has also been working very hard on developing better fine motor skills, practicing writing her name, doing pearler beads, beading, and needlepoint. She's very much looking forward to entering her needlepoint work in the county fair in a couple of weeks! She's also become very enthusiastic about learning about the pioneers, her heritage, and nutrition, so we've been trying to work on those things.

One recent activity:
We recently found a very big caterpillar in out back yard that was munching on our veggies, so we kept him in the house in a jar for a couple days. The kids enjoyed getting to see him crawl around at eat things. We read a couple of stories about them and butterflies, including The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Then we made our own caterpillars by coloring pieces of cardboard egg carton and attaching pipe cleaners for antenna. I had a couple other activities planned that we haven't gotten to yet, but hopefully we'll get to do those soon.

Snipping

Yesterday we completed 62 worksheets, meaning we're over halfway done with the Total Basic Skills Preschool workbook. Phew! I know we did some other activities.. but my head is so full of today's activities that I can't remember what else. lol

Today Reagan did 4 worksheets, an alphabet floor puzzle, an alphabet puzzle about 3 times, finger puppet play, we read the last 2 chapters of Madagascar Escape 2 Africa, chose a new book, went through the complete set of Things Outside Dora flap cards, did some play to practice with the 10 English/ Spanish cards in the set, completed one cutting practice worksheet (our first snipping activity!), and made 2 foam animal crafts. Reagan also spent some time in there reading with her Poingo. I'm sure we will do more this afternoon.. but I wanted to post before I forgot all that! :-)

Father's Day Prep Day!

This morning Reagan sat down and did 27 workbook pages. Then she and Adam each drew a picture while I read them a chapter of Madagascar 2. Reagan made wrapping for a gift for Father's Day and practiced using her cutting skills to do it. (I'll post a picture of this later.) In about half an hour we're headed off to a class to decorate a cake for Daddy for Father's Day, and then to a gymnastics demonstration Reagan was invited to participate in. It's amazing to think she's been doing gymnastics for almost 2 years now!

I'll edit this post to add more later in the day. :-)

Added at 4:15 PM

Reagan had a great time decorating her cake today! She did an awesome job, and only needed mommy's help with keeping the icing flowing out of the piping bag.

One of MANY pictures from Reagan's gymnastics exhibition.

Busy, Busy

We started a BIG workbook today in hopes that it would last longer. It's a preschool workbook, so it's pretty much all things that Reagan knows how to do already. And once she knows the directions, she can complete most activities by herself by recognizing what the directions are. Combining her work before and after lunch she completed a whopping 45 pages! She also took a break in there to draw a picture. We read 3 chapters of Madagascar 2, and played a game of Go Fish. Then she asked to listen to her Spanish Cd, so she did that. There was also some time on the Leap Pad in there! Phew! That girl is busy, busy! The also asked me to make a craft project for her to do this afternoon, but she was getting cranky and tired playing with her brother, so I sent her to play quietly by herself for awhile. We'll see how long it lasts!

Camping

We spent Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday camping at Lynx Lake! The kids had a wonderful time. We read the entire The Littles go Exploring book while we were camping! We also saw a lot of wildlife, and read a book about the life cycle of butterflies. Reagan heard, saw, and found the feather of a crow.

On Tuesday evening the kids spent some time coloring, and Reagan did some beautiful drawings:

"Me feeding the ducks in the water" The large red is Reagan with lots of hair sticking up. Down at the bottom, the red line is the water, and the red and green are three ducks. She was very specific to give them beaks. At right, is a picture of the actual event.


"Daddy, Reagan, and Mommy hiking on the trail" The big red person with the hair is mommy, the red person to the right of that is Reagan, and there is a pale brown person standing in front of/ below Reagan that is Daddy. The yellow lines down the right of the page are the trail. The big red "rectangle" on the left is our car, and the black is it's bumper. It's parked by the trail, and has some nice rainbow colored grass below.


Reagan was also eager to practice her Spanish on the trip, and used Hola, and Adios regularly. She also asked me to help her practice the command words she has learned, for march, clap, sit down, and stand up. She knows 1,2, 5, and 8 in Spanish, and kept having me repeat the numbers 1 through 10 so she could work on knowing more.

Spanish Begins

Today while cleaning in the morning I put on one of Reagan's Spanish learning CDs. She did every well with the first and second lessons. We repeated the first one 3 times, and the second one quite a few times as well. After that she listened, but wasn't repeating as much. However... the program is designed to be interactive, so you;re supposed to be doing things along with what they're saying, to help you learn the words. So of course since Juan said to make paper plate maracas, we had to do it!

Photos of their maracas. Reagan's is has a picture of a pizza with black olives on it on the front. The back of hers ended up being another pizza with olives that she drew, but didn't like.. which is why she made this one. I thought she wanted her original plate she had colored as the back since she was quite disgusted with the first pizza. But as you can see it's in the upper left corner, and ended up not being used on the maraca.


We didn't do any other really structured activities. But Reagan played with her Leap Pad a bunch, and did her alphabet train puzzle. I also got her project patch from Lowes sewn on her apron, and she was thrilled.

Yesterday- Saturday Classes!

Yesterday was Reagan's first building class at Lowes. Daddy was along so she got to pick who she wanted to help her with the project, and she picked him. She had a great time building a Hole in One putting green. She's very excited about this especially after last week's project at the Home Depot, and is looking forward to her next class in two weeks! It seems like we have a new regular Saturday activity!


After class we went for a family hike at Lynx Lake. Then in the evening Reagan helped make cheese omelets for dinner. She was a big help. Oh, and she wore her Lowes apron the ENTIRE time. :-)

States

We started learning states because we were teaching Reagan her address. And she got curious about where her grandparents and cousins lived, and why she coudln't see them all the time. So we showed her on a quilted wall hanging map. She was very interested to remember these places, so we gave her a US map place mat. She quickly started asking about what all the other states were. Now you can ask her when you're in the car or something and she'll start out listing them from memory. When she can't remember any more on her own she asks for hints. We give hints like "Mommy and Daddy rode in a fancy car here" and she usually comes up with the answer. If now we'll give her the first letter of the word, and she makes the sound to try and remind herself. And a lot of times she has so much fun playing this game that she wants to know more... she asks you to give her a clue and the name of another state so she can start memorizing it too. We did this tonight, just before getting ready for bed. She has her placemat to look at since we were home. Here's her list:

Knows Name and Map Location
Texas
Arizona
California
Nevada
Ohio
Hawaii
Wisconsin
Washington
Virginia
Georgia

Knows Name, But not on Map
North Carolina
South Carolina
South Dakota

From Clue, Knows on Map
Florida

From Clue, Doesn't Know on Map
None today

Others I know she Knows, But Couldn't Remember Today
Indiana
Montana
New Mexico
Kansas

That's almost half of the states! We're so proud!

We started out the day by picking our new chapter book: Swiss Family Robinson. Then Reagan asked to read The Berenstain Bears Learn About Strangers. While the kids had sine along and dance time with their favorite music, I got out some workbooks to try and plan some activities for this afternoon. Reagan saw them, and insisted on on working on right right away. Of course it was a 1st grade workbook. She did well with the first page, and we got through the second, but this one just requires more reading than she can do right now. So I finally convinced her to switch over to a Pre-K Carebears workbook that she had done a page each in last September and November. The difference in her abilities is of course HUGE. She sat and did 5 pages on her own while I made lunch.

After lunch Adam took a nap, and we completed the Care Bears Preschool Workbook. Then Reagan decorated her treasure box for keeping special things in. We put the box up to dry and sat down to rea the first chapter of Swiss Family Robinson. After reading we worked with a set of Food and Nutrition basic classifying cards. When we were done with this I needed a break, so Reagan went off to read with her Leap Pad.

Reagan's decorated treasure box:

Today's Learning

Today we did another whole workbook! This time it was Leap Ahead Golden Books Workbook Pre-school I Know Letters. This one involved some cutting activities which made it a little more challenging. There were some minor mistakes when lower case letters got a little confused, but by about a third of the way through Reagan knew all the directions for the different activities and was doing them on her own. Through using the workbooks she has learned the difference between stickers and stamps. We're planning to go camping next week, so we read a story book about camping, and then Reagan worked on a reader about camping. She read the title, and 2 pages before she got tired. We then baked 2 different batches of cookies; banana walnut oatmeal, and vanilla wafers. And we're adding a new chore to her responsibilities: taking out the compost materials after dinner. Or as she refers to it, "feeding the worm."

A Workbook a Day..

Yesterday morning we read our new copy of The Jungle Book that has the last 2 chapters intact, and completed the story. Then we had gymnastics and took a trip to our small local zoo. When we got home from the zoo Reagan and I read her entire issue of High Five magazine. She learned how cheese is made, some Spanish, and some other fun things from that, and asked if we could do some of the activities for which it has directions. Hopefully we'll get to do some of those soon. After High Five she wanted to do worksheets, so we started a new workbook; Step Ahead Golden Books Workbook Pre-school Before I Do Math. I read her directions and she just worked away. She completed the entire workbook! And on top of that she didn't make a single mistake until she was over halfway through the 32 pages! She made very few mistakes in all, but after the first couple she would recognize and correct them by herself even. Though we need to work on erasing the right thing a little more. It's a good thing I have some workbooks stocked up from shopping at the dollar store, or we'd be out in just 2-3 days! lol

Daddy's Birthday!

Both kids were truly excited for daddy's birthday this year, but it was a super great experience for Reagan who made her own gifts, and wrapped them! I did the bow for her, and cut the paper, but she did all the rest of the wrapping. She even wrote the card herself. I helped her spell DAD for the envelope, and she signed her own name inside! :-)

The presents she made were a video of her singing, with a message telling daddy happy birthday at the end. And the project she made at her first Home Depot workshop on Saturday! A hardware sorter. :-) She loved the class, and can't wait to go next month!

Some of Last Week's Learning

Reagan was a super big helper with setting up our new vegetable garden! She helped move rock, and turn the soil, and plant the plants, and of course water! She's really excited to watch the plants grow. We planted zucchini, pumpkins, eggplant, tomatoes and peppers. We also got out compost bin started once we had the garden planted. We found a worm while planting out plants and Reagan got to hold it, and then add it to the bin. She's extremely enthusiastic about feeding the worm, and is always asking what kinds of things he would like to eat. :-)

Reagan's radishes. She's very proud of having planted these, and taking care of them. She waters them herself, and is so excited to watch them grow.


We made an egg shell planter based on the one done of Sprout's goodnight show. Reagan has been asking to do some of the crafts they do on the show, so we started with this one. She made scrambled eggs all by herself one morning, and we saved this shell for her to make into the planter. She planted chives in it, and we're looking forward to them sprouting soon. Oh and regarding the eggs... she cracked them and put them in the pan, and stirred them the whole time until they were cooked herself to make a surprise breakfast for daddy. She was so proud!


Wooden stakes for the garden! Reagan had a lot of fun coloring these, but so save her clothes and the counter I gave her washable markers to do the coloring. Now I have to think of a way to seal them quick before it rains and all the colors start running! Oops!

First Part of the Week

On Monday we took a family trip to hike and swim at Bull Pen in the Verde Valley. We had a wonderful time, and the kids loved getting to splash in the river for the first time. Reagan brought home one special rock, a shell we found in the river, and I brought home a large leaf for her. That evening we read the current issue of Chip that deals with pond life. :-)





Tuesday Reagan did a leaf rub of the leaf with brown crayon and proudly put it up on the refrigerator. We had gymnastics, and she followed well with her class. They didn't split them into 2 groups, so there was plenty of space for Adam to run around and practice his gymnastics too. He's on the wait list still, and is so ready! He can do forward and log rolls with help, and walked on the beam all by himself. He even decided to and did a great job walking backwards on the beam holding hands! We also went to the field and played some soccer. She picked up some basics of the game very quickly, and is extremely enthusiastic for soccer came in July. When we got home from that, her replica jersey from camp had arrived in the mail! Reagan asked if we could restart our current book since we had only read 1 chapter and she couldn't remember what had happened since it had been a few days. So we did, and then we read 4 more! After 5 chapters she wanted to do schoolwork, and I asked if she would like to try sewing like Rebecca does in the book (we're currently reading Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm). She said yes, so I started her on a simple needlepoint project. She's doing wonderfully with it, and did a whole row and a half of stitches with just a little help.


Wednesday we read more, and Reagan requested to work on her sewing more. :-)

The Classics

I've probably already said this about a hundred times, but... Reagan just LOVES to learn! She;s been working on learning the states, and yesterday names 8 from memory on her own, and another 8 with clues (like this is were daddy was born.) She can consistently name at least a dozen when we do this, and probably knows almost half of them now. She also loves reading books! She spends a lot of her time reading Leap Pad and Poingo books on her own, and loves having chapter books read to her. We've read Finding Nemo twice, and The Secret Garden. Just today we finished The Wizard of Oz (we read the last 4-6 chapter- I lost count!) Then she picked the next book to read: The Jungle Book. We read 3 chapters of that before I noticed that the previous owner had not only written in the book, but had cut out about the last 10 pages. :-( Guess we'll have to borrow this one from the library or try to find a complete copy. We have a bunch more illustrated classics to read, and then we'll move on to come more contemporary works that should be fun.. like Beverly Cleary. I'm sure there's more to add, but she's asking to do worksheets now, so I have to end here! :-)

Update... Again

I really need to make a concerted effort for keep this more up to date!

We have completed reading The Secret Garden, and are now about half way through The Wizard of Oz, and Finding Nemo, both of which Reagan is quite enthusiastic about. Reagan has some Wizard of Oz dolls, and I've been planning to do some play with her, with those relating to our reading.. but we just haven't gotten there yet. She has been working on learning more states, working on lots of reading with her Poingo and Leap Frog. Thanks to Oma for a new Poingo book.. Reagan loves reading them all! We had a great educational, and FUN experience at the Phoenix Zoo on Sunday this week and Reagan had a great time identifying the animals. Monday we ready 3 chapters of Oz, 1 of Nemo, she did her karate video, we did coloring, and worked with Play Doh. We've really been trying to work with Play Doh more recently since it is such a different type of skill, and I am using it to introduce cutting to her. she loves to practice with her Play Doh scissors.. the safest kind of scissors out there in my opinion! It's one of the few skills I really think she needs work on right now. That and small motor control for writing are her biggest challenges for sure!

I promise to try and update more often!

Friday!

Our Friday started early! The kids love watching the Sunny Side Up show on PBS Kids Sprout in the mornings. This weeks theme was music. You can send in messages to the live show on their website, so we sent in this picture of Reagan

with a note to Chicka: "Dear Chicka, I love playing piano with my Oma." And they showed it on TV! Reagan thought it was so cool to see her picture on TV!

We need to get going with our day and do some more fun, and educational activities, but I will update later with what else we have done today. :-)

Thursday

The weather this week didn't really lend itself to a hike, so we did some indoor activities instead. We read another chapter of The Secret Garden, and are not about to start Part 4, the last section of the book! Reagan completed more of her Blues Clues letter book, and is now about 2/3 done with it. She would have love to have completed it yesterday, but Adam was getting up from his nap, so we had to break. But she read her Poingo books a lot, and she helped bake some yummy banana bread. She's also been doing a great job of teaching Adam what things to do to help out.. like setting the table. :-)

Terrible Tuesday, Wednesday.. Worse

Well.. we didn't do so well as far as getting stuff done yesterday as far as education. Reagan read her Poingo books. We got a new one and she was thrilled though! I think that was about all we got done yesterday and I feel kind of bad about that. :-( We even missed reading our book chapter. Ugh.

Today she has been reading her Poingo books more; always good. But other than that, nothing yet. Once Adam goes for a nap, we'll sit down and catch up on The Secret Garden, and then do some other activity I manage to come up with. :-) We also need to bring our seeds inside. We have a science project that is ongoing; our garden. We planted seeds for this year, and placed them outside in a mini greenhouse. But our weather has been so terrible, suddenly cold and very windy again, that nothing has even germinated yet. We're hoping to bring them inside and get them started in here at least. The problem is that we planted them in Pete pots, so we'll need to have some sort of trays under them inside. Plus find a place to put them when the kids won't get into them.

The worst thing thus far today though would be my call to the Montessori school where we'd like to eventually send the kids. They were really nice, and answered all of my questions, but..... And you knew there's be a but. It turns out that although they use to test children in for kindergarten, due to changes in state law.. they can no longer test in kids with b-days after a September cut-off date. No, they can ONLY take children who are ALREADY 5 by an AUGUST cut off date. Which means Reagan has to wait a full 2 more years to start school. By that time I'm worried she's going to be SO bored in school. Ugh. Well Adam's down for a nap, so it's off to do some activities.. I'll try to report back on those later.


UPDATE:
We read 3 chapters of The Secret Garden.
Reagan has read Poingo books at least four times
We completed 6 pages of a Blues Clues letter workbook
Completed A and B in a 1st grade letter workbook
Practiced writing the letter A- she also rote M, W, and O on the page
Made homemade air popped popcorn for snack
Drew some pictures

Monday 4/13

Today so far, Reagan read all of her Poingo books at least twice, we have read 2 chapters of The Secret Garden, and played the Zoboomafoo board game. The game is a lot of fun, and teaches animal names, and what kinds of foods the animals eat. It's not even 1 yet though, so I'm sure we will do more later today. :-)

And the update: more Poingo reading, and Leap Frog reading!

This week in Education

We have started doing weekly hikes. Hiking gets us out of the house, and not only gives us exercise, but also gives us time to talk about things. Just this last week Reagan started asking a whole bunch of questions while we were hiking around Lynx Lake; "Do fish poop? Do they poop in the water? They do? Are fish dirty in the poopy water that's dirty?" You could tell she didn't really approve of this. But she continued. "Do ducks drink milk from their mommies? They're birds. Oh right that's mammals, like piggies, and kitties, and doggies. They're the ones who spend a lot of time in their mommy's tummy."

Today we also started our new reading program. We just got a set of the illustrated classics at the thrift store. Reagan got to pick one, and we are reading a chapter a day. Her first choice was the Secret Garden. Can't wait to find out what happens when Mary arrives at her uncle's manor tomorrow! After reading chapter 1, we read a reader book about snakes, and worked on learning snake as a sight word. Reagan definitely knows some sight words already, including the word stop. :-)

We're also trying to be diligent about our weather record keeping this month! We haven't missed a day yet. And speaking of charts, Reagan has been working very hard on keeping up with her chore chart!

HUGE Update Including Sight Words!

I haven't updated this is sooooo long, but it doesn't mean that we haven't been doing anything.

The easiest way to do a quick update is to just list some of the new things Reagan knows/ is learning.

-Continents- thanks to an awesome interactive globe her grandparents gave her for her birthday
-Days of the Week
-Seasons and seasonal changes
-Weather- she's known this for awhile, but now comments on changes during the day etc.
-Planets- she is learning them from a place mat
-Even More Animal names!
-Sight Words! She can recognize and read "Dad" and "Cat"
-Sounding out Words- sounding out and reading other 3 letter words like "Mom" and "Dog"
-Address- the complete thing except zip code
-Where she lives- beyond address, she know she lives in the USA, on North America, on Earth
-Karate- Reagan has started doing a kids karate video at home, and loves it. She like telling people about her sensei lol
-Gymnastics- before she turned 3, Reagan moved up to Tot2, since then she has learned so many new skills including jump cartwheels which she recently mastered
-Time- some days she insists on wearing a watch and reading the number to us throughout the day- she corresponds noon to lunch, and tells us what activities happen during different parts of the day based on light levels- i.e. dark is night and bedtime is soon
-Computer Skills- she learned basic mouse skills last year already by playing her Dragon Tales game, and now can type using letters and numbers on the qwerty keyboard, and knows the space and enter keys- she can type in words if you spell them for her
-Writing- when she decides she wants to do it she can write most letters, and can put them together into words if you spell them for her
-Recognizing spelled words- sometimes she can recognize a word that is spelled out loud, just from hearing the spelling "Z-O-O" is one
-Learning more about animals- which animals are mammals, what makes them mammals , what the baby animals are called etc.
-Reversible and Irreversible Change
-A few US Presidents- she knows Lincoln, and Washington from the coins, and can recognize a few from a place mat
-Letter sounds- Kind of obvious since she sounds out words.. but she knows them all, and will list words that start with a certain letter, or, can figure out what letter a word starts with
-Sign Reading- recognizes and knows what stop signs, and store signs say
-Counting- Probably to 100.. she understands the concept of the 21, 22, etc, and can apply it to the 20s, 30s, 40s, etc.
-Beginning Math Skills- can count and do some basic addition and subtraction, working on less than, and more than counting sets
-Shapes- knows them all- just can't draw many lol
-Shoe Tying- She wants to do this, so we are working on it a little

I'll leave it there for now, though I'm sure I'm forgetting things.

Just in the past couple days we have been reading a new Kids Animal Encyclopedia with her, at her request. She sat and read it with daddy for an hour or more the other day. She got a finger puppet theater for her birthday and LOVES putting on puppet shows. We also recently planted some shamrock seed so they can grow for St. Patrick's Day. Regan loves planting seeds, and can't wait to see them grow! We are planning to start another grow project here soon as well. Regan has also been helping in the kitchen more and more. She made brownies for Valentine's day- mommy just put them in the oven, and the same with biscuits the other night. She also loves helping make Mac and Cheese, and sets the table regularly.

Sorry it's been so long since an update.. I will try to be more diligent in all education matters. :-)