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!