The chapter books that won over my girls...

There is a fine line between being able to read and suddenly devouring chapter books.  It is as if a light switch turned on and suddenly the child who just a few days ago didn't want to read a simple reader suddenly wants to read a chapter book every waking second.  What does it take for that light switch to turn on?  A well-written chapter book that draws the child into the story and makes her want to read another one!  This just recently happened with my third reader and I thought I'd share which chapter books helped my girls make the jump from "able to read but not willing to put forth the effort" to "Mama, can you please request the next book in this series at the library?"

1st child:  The Boxcar Children by Warner and Mandie books by Leppard
2nd Child: Rainbow Magic Fairy Books by Meadows and Encyclopedia Brown books by Sobol
3rd Child: Princess Katie's Kittens by Sykes and The Princess In Black series by Hale

4th child: Rainbow Magic Fairy books by Daisy Meadows

Natural Remedies for Constipation in Children

Constipation is one of the most common and most miserable childhood problems.  If a child has a difficult time staying dry through the night, it is highly likely that the child is constipated.  Two of my children have dealt with constipation.  My second child went through a stage where she needed to avoid dairy and gluten in order to heal her gut.  Anytime she ate one of those foods, she would get constipated.  Through an elimination diet, chiropractic care, and probiotics, we were able to heal her gut and now she can eat whatever she wants.   My 4th child, on the other hand, is a stubborn toddler who does not have a food sensitivity.  She became prone to constipation during potty training.  She simply does not like to have a bowel movement and will stubbornly hold it until it is very painful.  She is incredibly strong willed and this has become a major health problem for her.  One pediatrician recommended that I give her a half of a chocolate Ex-lax and another recommended Mirolax.  No thank you!  Those options can destroy the digestive system and cause health problems in the long run.  I did my own research and found several more gentle, natural options that have helped my daughter.

1.  Mommy's Bliss Constipation Ease -- this is a very gentle, natural medicine that my toddler actually loves to take.  It has no stimulant but gentle herbs and prune juice to make a bowel movement easier as well as prebiotics.  We use this more than anything else and I give it to her at the first sign that she is getting constipated.

2.  EZ Move Constipation Support Herbal Organic Remedy from Trilight Health. -- this one is more expensive but works well and my daughter loves the taste also.  I kind of take turns with these first two so she is receiving different herbs to help her.

3.  Slippery Elm bark -- This soothes and lubricates her digestive system so her bowel movements are easier and it has many valuable minerals in it as well.  I get this in a capsule that I can open and pour into anything I think she will eat.  Usually I add it to her applesauce or tea.  This is something I give to her on a regular basis as often as I can.  It has no negative side effects or stimulants and is completely natural.

4. LB Extract -- This one is much stronger and I only use it if she is really miserable and only until things get going easily again.  But it is natural and really works!

5.  Epsom salt bath -- I know it sounds simple, but nearly every time my child is constipated and I give her a bath with Epsom salts, within minutes she is jumping out to go potty.  The magnesium plus the feeling of water seems to stimulate her immediately.

6.  Raw Apple Cider Vinegar -- This is hard to stomach on it's own, but adding ACV to juice or tea can really help to keep someone regular.  I make a tea by pouring boiling water over ginger (also good for digestion!) and lemon and then adding raw honey and some ACV to it after it cools slightly.  It really helps my daughter.  I also sometimes add it to my diluted Kombucha and my daughter will drink it.

7.  Avoiding dairy and processed foods with white flour.  My daughter is not allergic to these foods, but they simply stop up the digestive system.  My daughter's constipation always flares up when traveling because I am not as careful about what she eats.  She can eat as much of my homemade bread (made from freshly ground spelt berrries and soaked for better digestion) as she likes without any problem.  But every time she goes to church and eats goldfish or crackers or other processed food, I have to give her some of the above remedies or she will have a major problem
 for the next week.  Too much dairy makes a huge noticeable difference as well.

8.  Baby food prunes mixed in with unsweetened applesauce -- When my daughter first had problems with constipation, I gave her lots of prunes to keep things moving.  But she quickly grew tired of them.  I finally thought of adding the pureed prunes to her applesauce, which she loves!  I also add in Slippery Elm bark powder and probiotics,  She loves it!

9. Chiropractic care -- we can't afford to take her as often as I would like, but nearly every time we do, she comes home and has a bowel movement.  It really makes a difference to be properly aligned!

A more simplified preschool approach

I LOVE teaching preschool!  I am now homeschooling my 3rd preschooler and I have learned a lot. Mainly, I don't do as much as I did with my first two.  I have learned what is the most beneficial and that is all I do. I don't worry about teaching all the subjects.  Preschoolers need time to play and imagine and pretend and listen to stories! Yes, preschoolers can learn a ridiculous amount of information.  But they don't have to do it right away.  And they can learn a ton in just a short amount of time each day.  Reading to a preschooler is absolutely the most important part of their education.  It covers all subjects and gives them a love for learning.  Honestly, I think if you did no other schoolwork but read to a preschooler for at least an hour each day, it would be fine.  Everything else can be learned easily in Kindergarten.  With that said, I pretty much waited to start any preschool work til after Christmas with my little girl.  She turns 5 in February and I really don't think children need to do much tablework before 5 years old.  Yes, we read TONS of books everyday and did puzzles and used math manipulatives that she thought were all games.  But I didn't do anything really structured until after Christmas.

Here is what our preschool day now looks like:
1.  While eating breakfast, I go over our phonics cards.  I have the lovely phonics cards from The Writing Road to Reading and I introduce a new one each day if I feel like she has mastered the previous ones.  She thinks this is a game and enjoys telling me the 3 sounds that the letter "y" can make or all 4 sounds that "ou" can make.  Then we do a few math flashcards from Rod and Staff.  She isn't doing any math worksheets yet because I don't like her to have to write much because it is still hard work for her and I want her to enjoy math.  But she likes these flash cards that ask what number comes before or after or which number is greater or smaller.  And we use math manipulatives to count things (and she really likes to tell stories with our colored bears and pattern blocks).  We also practice whatever poem we are currently memorizing over breakfast.

2.  She pretty much plays for the next hour and a half.  If the weather is good, we go outside and if not she just plays inside with her two-year old sister.  Lots of imagining and pretending and cutting and coloring going on.  It makes me smile!  I wish I could say that I prepare crafts for them but my life is too crazy.  I don't.

3.  We read picture books for about 45 minutes (or until the 2 year old gets restless).

4.  We practice our CC memory work songs for about 10 minutes.  This is the only structured history, geography, english, etc that she gets.  But don't forget about all the reading we do.  It covers all the subjects. :)

5.  We have lunch and then go outside (unless it is raining).

6. Naptime for the 2 year old and handwriting practice for my preschooler.  We only write for about 10 minutes and she also colors the answers in her Explode the Code book at this time.  I don't make her write in her Explode the Code.  The only writing she does is handwriting practice.  After this quick tablework, we take turns reading.  I read her a chapter from whatever chapter book we are enjoying  It is currently Besty-Tacy.  Then she reads me a lesson from her reading lesson book or Language lesson book or a story from Dick and Jane or her McGuffy Primer.  We go back and forth as I read a chapter and then she reads something short to me until her sister wakes up from her nap.  Then school is over and she plays the rest of the day.

Teaching my girls to read...

A lot of parents cringe at the thought of homeschooling because the thought of teaching their child to read is daunting.  I've found the opposite to be quite true... it is one of the most exciting and thrilling things I've ever done!  It is such a joy to finally see all those sounds click in my preschooler's mind and see the light come on.  The excitement is so contagious!  I've learned a lot and used many resources in teaching my first 2 children to read so I thought I would share the books that helped my girls the most.

1. The Reading Lesson Book:
Ordinary Parent's Guide To Teaching Reading -- this book makes it easy.  It teaches all the rules as the child needs to know them.  I will admit that it wasn't my girls' favorite initially (because reading is hard work at first and the font is small) but they grew to like it.  It calmed my worries because I was afraid that I would forget to teach something important.

and/or

Alphaphonics -- this book has bigger letters so my girls usually like it more initially.  It takes a while to get through the first page, but after that, reading has begun!  We usually start with this book for a while, but then it gets monotonous so we switch to Ordinary Parents.  Once reading has begun, I usually do one reading "lesson" and have them read one "real" book to me each day as well.

Note: These simple reading lesson books are sufficient for teaching reading in most cases, but if you really desire a step-by-step hands-on program, the All About Reading program is phenomenal.  I haven't used it with my girls, but have reviewed it and have friends that highly recommend it and it is the best reading program I have seen.

2.  The first "real" books we love:
Bob books -- these are fabulous little books that the child can read as soon as he starts blending sounds.

Dick and Jane books -- these might seem "old school" but they are seriously the best books for sight words.  I have never ever drilled my girls in sight words because they pick them up easily when reading the Dick and Jane books. They also start out super easy and get progressively harder which is great.  My girls love the silly stories as well.

Dr.  Seuss Beginner Books -- we love them!

3.  Once those are mastered:

You Read To Me; I'll Read To You books -- My girls beg to read these with me!

Ready, Set, Read! by Cole -- A great collection of simple children's literature

4. Now ready for anything!
The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury by Schulman -- My 6 year old is currently reading through one story a day from this book with me.  Her vocabulary is really expanding while reading great children's literature!

Another great resource:
Explode the Code:  These inexpensive workbooks are fantastic for phonics practice.  My second child actually read for the first time the day she begged to do Explode the Code like her big sister.  We still had more work to do before everything clicked, but she began sounding out words immediately!  I will say that with my girls, their brains were ready to read long before their fingers were ready for a lot of writing, so I didn't ask them to write out a lot of the words in ETC until much later.  They did all the circling exercises and x-ing out and we just did the writing part out-loud instead of on paper.  I did not want to slow down the reading process because writing was still difficult for them.

Kindergarten and Preschool schedule/ ideas

A friend recently asked what I do all day with my girls because she was wanting to get an idea of pre-school for her older toddler. I thought I'd share my response here:

Our general schedule is very flexible -- I learned not to write specific times because nothing ever goes exactly as planned with so many little ones:

1. breakfast, clean up, get dressed

2. Breakfast notebooks -- I've made notebooks for the big girls with things they are working on: daily calendar counting, weather graph, tracing names and addresses, map tracing, numbers, shapes, colors, etc. Most of the pages I put in sheet protectors and they use dry erase markers everyday and then erase. My Kindergartener also has handwriting, phonics, and math worksheets. My toddler does any number of things during this time: drawing on our dry-erase board, puzzles, taking all the tops off our markers, etc

3. Classical Conversations review - I have a display board that I put their memory work for the week. My toddler actually likes to do this because it is mostly songs to go with each poster and they dance around and sing.

4. Outside time, lunch

5. Naps -- the big girls listen to books on CD for the first hour and then I do the eldest's reading lesson and practice while my toddler is still napping. If she naps long enough we do spelling on the dry erase board which they think is great fun (with my preschooler I usually just give letter sounds or blends and I help her write the letters)

6. Free play or outside time while I cook dinner.

7. eat dinner, clean up for Daddy, play with Daddy, bedtime routine

So that is the general routine (only about 3 days a week, really, because of CC co-op, our mommy playgroup, Sunday, and my husband's day off). My preschooler is at the point now where I write things with a highlighter and she traces it and will attempt a few letters but tires easily and that is fine. The early Bob books (Alphabet and Pre-reading skills) are great for toddlers as well. My girls always loved the tiny books with funny pictures so she might sit for those even if she is not that into reading. Also, my girls loved the Sound Box books by Jane Moncure and they were all at my library so you can probably request them here. You could get a couple a week and focus on those letters with your toddler if you wanted to. But honestly, I've found the easiest way to teach letters is by doing a letter puzzle with them. They learn it without even trying! And then just practice counting up and down in games like hide and seek and whenever you see multiple objects in books. And then just keep lots of books on hand and read as much as she will allow so it comes naturally when she is older. And thats all I can think of for the littles. They really don't need to know much and do too much schoolwork. I personally think playtime is very important at that age! The main thing you need to do is read, read, read to build her vocabulary. Since she doesn’t have a big attention span yet, use books as a transition... one or two before and after naps, mealtimes, playtimes, etc. It helps with the transition to different activities (which is difficult for that age) and soon her attention span will grow and she will be asking you to read more and more books at a time. And really, that is all she needs at this age. Nursery Rhymes are great at this age because it teaches them rhyme and meter. A lot of them don’t make a bit of sense, but the little ones love them, especially if you check out a book that is illustrated beautifully. Also, there is a Wee-Sing nursery rhyme Cd that my girls absolutely LOVE. It has made road trips so much easier and they have memorized tons of them effortlessly.

Educating my almost 3 year old

One of my friends recently asked me what I was doing educationally with Karis since we aren't planning to send her to preschool at all. So I thought I might as well blog about it :)

Honestly, I'm not all that worried about formal teaching at this age. My main goal every day is to read a ton of books, have a lot of time to play outside, and have her help me do everything around the house. She has managed to easily learn all the basics (colors, numbers, shapes, alphabet, etc) without having to sit down and "do school-work." However, we do have a specific time each day while Karlie is napping that is "Mama-Karis time" that she really looks forward to and I try to plan something to do with her during that time. Here are some of things we are doing (I usually just pick one to do after reading Bible Stories before starting our library books.)

I think reading as much as possible is the key at this age, so I love the Before Five in a Row book by Lambert because it helps me think of activities and discussions to have about the books we are reading. It is kinda pricey, so I would recommend just borrowing it from the library and jotting down some ideas or making copies. All of the books it uses are at our library. I might actually buy the Five in a Row book next year when she is ready for it because it has recipes and maps and other stuff that I will probably do with each of our kids and want to have on hand. 

I've also started making a little "preschool binder" for Karis with sections on Character Training and Manners, Bible Verses (to memorize), All About Me and My Family (she loved picking out pictures to tape in!), Letters, and Numbers, etc for coloring and reading. I'm just printing out sheets I find online. She has really enjoyed doing that with me. 

Slow and Steady Get Me Ready by Oberlander is a book that I got when Karis was born and it has weekly developmental activities from birth to age 5. I haven't done a ton with it since Karlie was born, but I looked at it again recently and think I will start doing one activity a week from it with Karis

When she is closer to 4, I plan to teach her to start sounding out words using The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading by Wise. Her book, The Well-Trained Mind was really intriguing to me and I am currently thinking I will try to give my girls a classical education. We'll probably home-school unless Mark ends up teaching at a good private school where we could get a discount :)

I've heard really good things about ABC Jesus Loves Me, so I'm thinking about using some of their curriculum some in the fall. 

toddler book fav

Ok, I have a new favorite set of books for my toddler and I just have to share it with you. Ever since teaching preschool, I've loved anything by Eric Carle. Kids of all ages seems to love the bright-colored pics and simple phrases. I recently bought her his "My Very First Library" set of books. It was super reasonably priced at Amazon and has 4 awesome books inside about first words, colors, shapes, and numbers. They are so neat because they are cut in half so that the child has to match up the color with an animal of that color or a word with the correct picture, etc. (if that didn't make sense, just clink on the link to read the Amazon description :) Anyways, my toddler and I both love them. I started out making it a game for her. With the word book, I would say the word and then ask, "is this a sun?" She would grin and shake her head "no" and we would move onto the next picture til she found the right one. She thinks its so much fun! I have always done the sign for "no" with her (mainly for discipline purposes :) but have recently gotten out of the habit. And I never did "yes" with her very much. But I decided to bring it back as we read this book and introduce "yes" and she picked it up in just a few pages. She really thinks these books are so much fun and is learning so quickly that I just had to give my thumbs up for the books :)

children and imagination

...just thought this was interesting and wanted to share it.

"Teresa Belton, a researcher in England, noticed something while reading a lot of stories written by children. They were boring and unimaginative. So she looked at their schedules and noticed they had very full, very exciting days. With absolutely no dead time. Which is to say, no time to daydream, to teach their minds to wander and imagine.

The problem with this habit, Belton says, is that it kept the kids from daydreaming. Because the children were rarely bored - at least, when a television was nearby - they never learned how to use their own imagination as a form of entertainment. “The capacity to daydream enables a person to fill empty time with an enjoyable activity that can be carried on anywhere,” Belton says. “But that’s a skill that requires real practice. Too many kids never get the practice.”

--summary found at worldmagblog

--original in-depth article found at The Boston Gobe