Teaching Ella to Read

I should have written this post several months ago, but life got busy (doesn't it always?), and I never wrote it. So, here it is now . . .only a few months late.

When Ella was around 4 1/2 years old, I ventured into the task of teaching her to read. Though I'd never taught anyone to read, I really thought she was showing lots of signs of readiness, so I decided that we would begin the journey. I entered into the task with caution: if, for some reason, she wasn't ready I wasn't going to push it. She was still young when I began the process, and I didn't want to deter her from reading or learning in any way by pushing her if she wasn't ready.

I chose to use the book Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons as our curriculum (I've included a brief review at the end of this post). I made Ella a sticker chart to show her progress and help motivate her along the way. The first few lessons went well with Ella. Then, slowly, things started to get really frustrating. We were struggling through the lessons, and I was getting more and more frustrated. I really thought she could do the lessons (which only frustrated me more!), but just wasn't putting forth the right kind of effort to complete the lessons. So, around lesson 20 or so, we stopped. I decided to take a step back and reevaluate in a few months.

I'm SO glad we took a step back, and started again a few months later. Our lessons were like night and day compared to a few months earlier. She breezed through most lessons, and continued to be eager to learn more. That's not to say that there weren't times when we had tough lessons, but overall, our lesson time was much, much better. 

What was the difference in the few months time? Was Ella not really ready? When I reflect back to the first time that we tried to work on the lessons, I think the struggles with the lessons had a lot more to do with me than with Ella. It was my first time attempting anything like this, and I'm not sure that I had the right approach and attitude with Ella. I think she easily picked up on my frustration and that manifested in how she completed the lessons. When we started the second time, I started with a fresh attitude and more determined patience. I think my demeanor with her made a huge difference in the lessons.

And now, Ella can read! She finished the 100th lesson not long after she turned five years old. I was very pleased with how well she was reading when she completed all 100 lessons, and her reading has continued to progress even though the official lessons have stopped. I think the curriculum did a good job giving her the tools she needs to continue to grow in her reading ability.  

Here are my general thoughts about the curriculum Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. I should note that I haven't looked at any other curriculums or programs for teaching reading, so I do not have anything to compare the program to. 

Pros:

• The book is inexpensive, and does not require any additional materials except some paper to do the sound writing portion.
• The book was very easy for me to use to teach her. Everything was laid out - even down to the words I should say during each lesson.
• The lessons were short. The book states that each lesson should only take about 15-20 minutes. There were many times Ella finished a lesson in about 10 minutes, but there were also some lessons that took her longer than 20 minutes. On average, most lessons did take about 15 minutes.
• The lessons are also short enough that you can do more than one lesson a day, depending on your child. With Ella there were times she was especially eager to keep on, and it was nice to be able to move on to the next lesson.
• It was also nice to know that if Ella was struggling with something, the lesson was short, and we didn't have to labor on for a long period of time.
• The book incorporated pictures, questions for checking for comprehension, as well as writing as part of learning to read.
• We frequently skipped the writing portion of the lessons. I think the writing portion is beneficial, but for Ella is wasn't always necessary.
• I wasn't sure how to classify this, but I really liked the way the book teaches the student to sound the words out.

Cons:

• The lessons, particularly the first 25 or so, can be tedious until your child "gets" the method.
• The names of the letters of the alphabet are not introduced until the very end of the book (letters are simply referred to using the sound they make). There is reasoning behind not using the letter names (and I understand that), but Ella already knew her letters prior to starting the curriculum, so we skipped parts of lessons at the end.

Overall, I really liked this curriculum, and plan to use it for Troy. I do think it will be interesting to see how Troy takes to the approach compared to Ella, because I think Ella's personality fit the curriculum well and Troy and Ella are quite different. : ) 

Clothespin Color Letter Matching

Inspired by a blog I found through Pinterest, I created this clothespin letter matching game with colors. I thought it would be a good opportunity to for Ella to not only practice her letters, but also learn to recognize the words for several colors. I mounted the cards on index cards (simply because it was something sturdy I had hanging around), and laminated them for extra durability. Poor Ella, though, because I didn’t do the best job clearly writing the letters on the clothespins (it was harder to write the letters than I thought it would be!). I’m going to have to go back through a few of the clothespins and fix my poor handwriting!

 

 

Baking with Ella

I’ve been meaning to get Ella more involved in cooking/baking for a while, but it has just been one of those things I seem to let slip. I really intend to get her in the kitchen (and Troy as well) starting from a young age for lots of reasons including that I want them to be able to cook. : )

Today I helped Ella make cornbread. She had a blast! She licked her finger once and I thought it had to taste bad (as much as I love cornbread, I can’t imagine the batter tastes good). However, when I asked her about it, she just smiled and said it tasted good. : ) She was very concerned about the flour that spilt outside the bowl. She kept wanting to add it back in (a little at a time).

 

 

 

 

By the way, Ella’s apron was made by one of the fabulous ladies from Stitches and Such. I love her apron, and I was in no way compensated for mentioning the product in this post.

5 Reasons to Teach Your Children About God

I know a lot of people say that they want to teach their children about God. Sadly, it seems many people who say they want to teach their children about God don’t actually teach their children about God, whether that be that they do not teach them about the Bible or that they do not live the lives necessary to teach their children about God. I don’t want to be either of those types of people. I want to teach my children the Bible and live the type of life that God has called us to live. I’m not perfect – I don’t claim to be - and I know that I will make mistakes, but I’ve got to be striving to teach my children because their souls are in my hands. This list could be much longer, but here are just a few reasons I believe I need to teach my children about God.

1. As a Christian, I’m commanded to teach. The command to teach in Matthew 28:18-20 (as well as other passages) doesn’t exclude my children. Additionally, God has always called on parents to teach their children about Him. Consider Deuteronomy 6:6-9: “⁶And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
2. So that they can be saved from their sins. At this point in their lives, my children are still too young to have sin on their record. Children are not born with sin. But, if my children continue to grow up, eventually they will sin, and with that comes separation from God. I must teach them about God so they know how to be saved from their sins.
3. So that they can spend eternity in heaven. This goes right along with the previous point: the only way they can spend eternity in heaven is to be saved from their sins, and I want them to understand what the Bible teaches about how to get to heaven. After all, we’re going to be judged by Christ’s word (John 12:48).
4. So that they can tell others about God. My children will likely have opportunities for evangelism that I may never have. They’ll come into contact with people I may never meet. They’ll have unique personalities and experiences that make them ideal for talking to someone about God that I may not have.
5. So that they can exhibit the characteristics of godliness. My children cannot exhibit the characteristics of godliness without knowing God. If I want them to be pure, truthful, kind, loving, merciful, gracious, humble, compassionate, patient, and faithful (only naming a few of the characteristics of godliness), I must teach them about God and His ways.

Held Accountable

When we moved into our home, we did a ton of work in the house. I think we did at least some sort of work in every room of the house, with the exception of our bathroom. Some days I’m thankful that we haven’t gotten around to remodeling our bathroom yet.  Last Thursday was one of those days.

We were sitting in our living room when Ella came back from going to the bathroom (she’s pretty sufficient to use the bathroom by herself now – it is wonderful!). When she came into the room, she was hiding her hands behind her back. She came in quietly and went behind the couch, keeping her hands behind her back the entire time. We figured she’d taken something out of the bathroom she wasn’t supposed to bring into the living room, but it was worse than that. When my husband finally got her to open her hands up, her hands revealed that she’d been playing with my fingernail polish in the bathroom.  Somehow she only managed to get a couple drops on her dress and a few spots on her hands. There were, however, several large dark pink spots on the bathroom floor. This is why I’m thankful we haven’t gotten around to fixing up our bathroom yet.

As we went through the process of disciplining her for her actions (this is the second time she’s gotten into my fingernail polish) I was thinking about what someone from the outside might say about the whole situation. Such things like, “Why was the fingernail polish in her reach?” or “Why was she allowed to go to the restroom by herself?” It made me think about how those type of questions put guilt off of Ella. Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I do not advocate sending children into dangerous situations or even trying to “tempt” them. My fingernail polish was not easily accessible by Ella (she really had to try to get it), and she knew that she was not supposed to get into it in the first place. I realize that she is only 2 1/2 but there are definitely things she knows to do or not to do. The fact that she walked into the living room hiding her hands testifies to the fact that she knew she had done something she wasn’t supposed to do.

I think it is important to hold children accountable for the their actions. I don’t enjoy seeing Ella doing things that she shouldn’t do, but I think I would only make the situation worse for her (and us) in the long run if I made excuses for her and did not hold her accountable for what she has done.  I know that I have a great responsibility in showing Ella what is right and what is wrong, and part of that responsibility includes making sure she knows there are consequences for her actions. Ultimately, as she grows up she needs to realize that God will hold her accountable (just like we all need to realize) for the things that she does. Consider 2 Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” I do not say this meaning that we must work our way into heaven (or earn our way into heaven), but rather that we will be judged by whether or not we are living a faithful life in accordance with God’s Word. I know that one way I can help teach Ella about faithful living is to hold her accountable for the things that she does.

Let’s Talk About Noah

Teaching my children about God’s Word and hiding it in their hearts is one of the most important tasks I have as a parent. There are so many ways to teach and engage children so that they learn God’s Word, and I want to share a video of one way with you. The video is Ella talking to her dad about one of her favorite Bible stories right now: Noah.  We talk about something like this almost every night before Ella goes to bed, and Ella really loves to talk about these different stories and things from the Bible. Teaching children about the Bible doesn’t always require a formal lesson; rather, it can be something as simple as a conversation.

Let's Talk About Noah from Lisa on Vimeo.

Toddler Chores

Even though Ella is only two years old, we’ve already been trying to teach her how to do some chores and how to help out around the house. I want her to learn that it is important to help out within the family, and to learn to do without complaining. I want her to learn to take the initiative when it comes to being involved in taking care of responsibilities around the home. I firmly believe that starting at a young age can help instill the quality of hard work.

We’ve been teaching and encouraging Ella to help out around the house for many months now. I think the first thing we taught her was to take trash to the trash can. At first this involved lots of coaching to keep her on task when she was taking something to the trash can, but now, she’s really good about taking things we ask her to take. She loves to take Troy’s diapers to the trash can – I think she really feels like a big helper when she helps with anything involving Troy.

A large part of this process is training myself to teach her and to have patience with her. Many times it isn’t helpful or useful to me at the moment to get her to do a chore or to help out. Many (or even, most) times it would be easier and faster for me to complete whatever task I’m trying to get her to do, but it is important that she learns to do them, even if it takes longer for something to be completed.

For example, I’ve  been teaching Ella to help me pick up her toys. I’ll admit that at first this tested my patience. She would get distracted and play with the toys that were still out or pull toys out that were already put away, but now she does great helping me put the toys up. In fact, it is actually helpful to me if she helps put the toys up!

My husband came across a link on Focus on the Family the other day describing age-appropriate chores. I found it to be a very  informative article. Although I don’t agree with everything on the Focus on the Family website (especially concerning teaching on faith that is not in accordance with God’s Word in all areas), it can be a very useful resource in parenting!

Tot School

-Ella is 24 months old-

Last week we worked on the letter “D” using several printables from the COAH blog. Ella can now identify A, B, C, D, E, and sometimes L. She’s picking up letters quickly now. We’re still only working on one letter each week, but she’s learning to recognize the letters a lot more quickly than in the past.

In conjunction with the letter D, she had her first exposure to a lacing activity using the dinosaur from COAH. She didn’t get it at first – in fact she just ripped the dino’s head off even though I had laminated it – but by the second day I let her play with it, she was actually practicing lacing!

Ella has also been doing really well with counting to ten, although at times she forgets eight. We practiced counting using the Ten Tiny Puppies book.

Ella has been thoroughly enjoying playing with her shape sorter. It has a bunch of shapes and is a good challenge for her. Sometimes she enjoys just dumping them all out and putting them back in (with the lid open), but that works great too!

Hiding the Word in Their Hearts: Genesis 1-2 {Part 1}

Child’s Target Age: 2 years old

Bible Text: Genesis 1-2

Memory Verse:

Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Key Lessons:

• God is all powerful.
• God is in control.
• God made everything we can see and everything we cannot see.
• God’s creation was good.
• God created the earth in six literal days (consider how the days are defined in the passage – morning and night were day one, etc.)

Songs:

Days of Creation:

Day one, day one, God made light when there was none. (repeat)

Day two, day two, God made heaven and sky of blue. (repeat)

Day three, day three, God made flowers and grass and trees. (repeat)

Day four, day four, God made sun, moon, and stars galore. (repeat)

Day five, day five, God made birds and fish alive. (repeat)

Sixth day, sixth day, God made animals and man that day. (repeat)

Day seven, day seven, God rested in His heaven. (repeat)

Fuzzy Caterpillar:

Fuzzy caterpillar, climbed up in a tree!

He wiggled short, he wiggled long, he wiggled right at me!

I put him in a box. “Don’t you move!” I said.

But when I opened up the box, there was a butterfly instead.

Now I could never make one, even if I tried.

Cuz’ only God in heaven can make a butterfly!

Genesis 1:1 (to tune of “Are You Sleeping”):

In the beginning, in the beginning,

God created, God created,

The heavens and the earth, the heavens and the earth.

Genesis one-one, Genesis one-one.

My God is So Big

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do!

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do.

The mountains are His, the valleys are His, the trees are His handiwork too.

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do!

Activities:

• Creation Cards (from Apologetics Press) to reiterate that God made everything. I really love these cards from Apologetic Press – great quality and beautiful pictures, but you could easily make your own.
• Draw/color a representation from each day of creation. This lesson could be spread out over the week, doing one day of creation each day of the week. The child’s creations (sheets) could then be used in conjunction with singing the Days of Creation song. You could also hang each sheet up on the wall, bulletin board, etc., and review each day prior to learning about the next day of creation.

This is only part 1 in the lessons I plan to do based on Genesis 1-2. The second lesson will be focused on “God Created Me!”

For a list of all the Hiding the Word in Their Hearts Lessons, click here.

Tot School

~Ella is 24 months old~

We’ve been really out of our regular Tot School routine. We’ve had a sick household off and on for about two weeks, but with that said, we have done a few things.

For Christmas Ella got a ton of Melissa and Doug toys. I love these toys, and so does Ella. They are great for learning, and Ella really enjoys playing with them.

Ella has loved building towers with these blocks. I’m absolutely amazed at how good she has gotten at building the towers. She also puts the boxes all back together. I thoroughly enjoy watching her mind work through the process of figuring out which order the boxes must be put back together.

Ella is beyond obsessed with coloring lately. Although it is still a bit advanced for her, I printed out tracing sheets from COAH. Ella has started drawing lines and circles on her own, so I thought I’d go ahead and introduce the tracing sheets.

Ella played with alphabet fridge magnets I got from Target for $1.00. She loves playing with them on the cookie sheet. Although she can’t recognized many letters yet, she loves finding the ones she knows. She’ll ask “What’s that?” when she comes to a letter she doesn’t recognize.

Ella has also been playing with puzzles a lot, like this Melissa and Doug animal sound puzzle. She’s so quick with the puzzles now, but she still loves to do them!

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On a completely unrelated note, my photo of Ella that won first place in the Paper Mama’s Photo Challenge is in a vote-off for the best photo of the month. I’d love a vote if you like my photo! :)

Hiding the Word in Their Hearts: The Bible

I know that this series of lessons will be a work in progress. That is to say that I’d like to have a particular format for the lessons to follow, but I’m not 100% sure what will work best until I actually put it into practice. So, with that said, bear with me as I work out the kinks!

How will I use these lessons? For now, considering Ella’s age (2 years old), I plan to focus on one lesson per week. I want her to be immersed into Bible stories and messages, and to become familiar with these things. However, I don’t want to overwhelm her by throwing too much information at her at once, which is why I intend on only doing one main lesson per week at this time.

I’ve thought a lot about where to start these lessons, but I’ve decided to start with a very basic foundational lesson: The Bible. There is a major attack on God’s Word in today’s world, and I want to train my children to have a strong faith in the Bible, even when others may be tearing it down. This foundation begins with a knowledge of what the  Bible is.

Child’s Target Age: 2 years old

Bible Text: This lesson is not taken from one particular passage; however, some passages to draw principles from or to consider could include 2 Timothy 2:15; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:15-21; 2 Peter 1:2-4; and Psalm 119.

Memory Verse: Psalm 119:105: “Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.” (NKJV)

Key Lessons

• God gave us the Bible.
• The Bible is a special book.
• The Bible tells us about Jesus.
• The Bible tells us how we should live.

Activities

• With a Bible, practice proper handling of the Bible such as talking about not coloring in it, not tearing the pages, etc. because it is a special book.
• Using a flashlight and/or candle in a dark room, demonstrate how the light shows the way. Explain that the Bible does the same thing for us in this world.
• Using individual letters (such as magnetic fridge letters or simply letters on separate pieces of paper), practice letter recognition while singing “The B-I-B-L-E".”

Songs

The B-I-B-L-E, yes that’s the book for me.

I’ll stand upon the word of God, the B-I-B-L-E.

 

The Bible is God’s book, His words are written there.

I’ll keep it in a special place and handle it with care.

 

Oh, we love to hear the Bible, the Bible, the Bible.

Oh, we love to hear the Bible for it is God’s word.

It tells us God loves us, it tells that God made us.

Oh, we love to hear the Bible for it is God’s word.

(Repeat with “read” instead of “hear”)

 

Two little hands to hold my Bible, two little hands to hold my Bible.

God gave me my two little hands to use for Him.

Two little eyes to read my Bible, two little eyes to read my Bible.

God gave me my two little eyes to use for Him.

Teaching Ella to Pray

Raising my children to be faithful followers of God is the most important task I have as a parent. It is a difficult task that will require much diligence throughout my children's lives. I want to instill a true faith in them, and I strongly believe that instilling a true faith should begin at a young age.

There are many elements involved when teaching my children about God, but one we have been focusing on with Ella has been teaching her to pray. The process began by exposing her to prayer - whether that was during a worship service, before a meal, or before going to bed at night.

Next, we worked (and are still working) on teaching her to be still and hold her hands together during a prayer. We've taught her to hold her hands together as a way to help keep her focused and still. One most certainly does not have to keep their hands together to pray - the Bible does not teach that - but it helps to focus little hands that might be busy elsewhere during a prayer.

Ella is a good observer. Starting between 18 and 19 months old, she started saying "Maymen!" (aka "Amen") at the end of prayers that she heard. She also started requesting "prayer!" every time we laid her down in her bed. It melted my heart the first time she asked for a prayer.

Recently we've begun teaching her to verbally say a prayer. To do this, we've been getting her to repeat after us - short phrases with words she can say. Right now, most of the prayer we are getting her to repeat involves being thankful: "Thank you for mama. Thank you for daddy. Thank you for Troy. Thank you for grandparents." We also include other things that we should be thankful for such as the church, our blessings, and Jesus. I realize that at this point Ella doesn't really understand anything about what a blessing is or what the church really is, but it is important for her to become familiar with these words even though she doesn't understand them yet.

Obviously, there is a lot more involved in prayer than what we have taught Ella so far, but it is a continual teaching process. I know that I still have a lot of growing to do personally when it comes to prayer, and I hope that my focus on teaching Ella will help me in my own prayer life.

Tot School: Week 8

-Ella is currently 22 months old-

Check out what we did in Tot School last week!

We took the week of Thanksgiving off from Tot School (we didn't do anything official), but we got back into our activities this past week.

• Letter B: We started working on learning the letter B this week (Ella can now easily recognize the letter A everywhere!). We focused on "B is for Butterfly" and Ella really enjoyed coloring butterfly pictures. There are a ton of great ideas for the letter B on the Confessions of a Homeschooler blog. Many of her activities are still to advanced for Ella, but we were able to use a few of them, and I look forward to using more as Ella continues to learn.

• Christmas/Winter Activities: This is Ella's second Christmas, but it is the first one that she is really old enough to learn about some Christmas/Winter things. We've been learning about snowmen and Christmas trees. Ella has been coloring Christmas trees and snowmen all  week long. I found a bunch of coloring sheets from the Crayola website. 

• Shapes: Ella has been doing great with her shapes! She thoroughly enjoys doing her shapes puzzle I made from the COAH blog.

• Life skills: We decided to give Ella a Christmas present early so that she could have some practice with opening Christmas presents and learning how to act during present-opening. The Christmas present we gave Ella was a Melissa and Doug latches board. This "puzzle" has different types of locks/latches on doors that open up to reveal different animals.

Waiting for dad to open it up!

Cheesy posing with her present picture:

Tot School: Week 7

-Ella is currently 21 months old-

Check out what we did in Tot School last week!

Do you ever have one of those weeks where you look back and it went by so quickly you don't even feel like the week existed? I had one of those weeks last week. Needless to say, Tot School activities were a bit slacking in our house last week, but that's ok - it is part of life! And, unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures this week either. :(

We did a lot of work on continuing to recognize the letter "A" this week. Ella consistently identifies the letter "A" now and she is so proud when she points it out. One day she brought me a book and pointed out letter "A"s on the pages for probably 15 minutes. It was so cute! I try to take every opportunity to show Ella the letter "A" as we are going about our daily activities. I think it is good for her to learn to recognize the letter "A" in many different situations. 

Ella loves to play with her pegs and pegboard. I tried to work on sorting colors with the pegs, as well as identifying colors, but this week she was mostly concerned with building the longest stick of pegs possible and saying "tall! tall!"

This weekend we had the opportunity to take Ella to her first University of Texas football game - this was quite the learning experience for her! There were so many things to watch and learn about at the game. She had fun clapping along with the crowd, identifying the longhorns that were everywhere, watching the football game, as well as learning about the band.

Tot School: Week 6

-Ella is currently 21 months old-

Check out what we did in Tot School last week!

One of Ella's favorite things to do over the past several months is to put things into containers, take (dump!) them out, and put them back in again. After I saw this particular idea (straws into a container) I knew Ella would love doing this activity and it would be a great time for her to work on her fine motor skills. I was right - she loved it! She played with this all week long!

Ella is still a little bit too young for me to venture into making cookies from scratch with her (I think she'd get bored with the activity before we finished), but my mom had the idea a while back to make cookies using the pre-made cookie dough. The week after Halloween I spotted these pumpkin cookies on clearance, and thought they'd be perfect for us to make.

Ella loved that they had pumpkins on them since we've been doing a lot of stuff with pumpkins lately.

I turned the light on in the oven, and showed her how to watch for the cookies bake.  Of course, she had to have her monkey with her! :)

While the cookies finished baking, Ella wanted to color. Once they had cooled off, she tasted the cookies, and loved them! (See the huge bite she is taking, lol!)

We continued to do a little work on recognizing the letter A. She loves to say "A for Apple" but hadn't really been recognizing the letter A when I asked her about it, until last night. Last night she identified the letter A several times! We'll continue to reinforce the letter A this week.

We also did some coloring activities with turkeys (since Thanksgiving is coming up very soon, yay!). I hope to do something along the lines of this Thanksgiving turkey activity this week.