It's not Rocket Science!

At the start of this school year I can remember thinking "how in the world am I going to teach my middle daughter, Lover Girl, how to read?".  When my oldest was her age she already knew her letters and sounds and was starting to read (plus my oldest attended a preschool for 2 years and now I was doing preschool at home).  There I sat with Lover Girl on our first official day of school and it felt like such an impossible task to accomplish.   I thought to myself "this is going to be a LONG year".  I am so thankful for a free online preschool program I came across called Preschool Palace.  It teaches 3 letters, 1 color, 1 shape, and 1 number each month and its FREE.  So I started this our second week of school.  I also decided to hang up a pocket wall chart as a visual reference.  If you have a hands-on/visual child like mine I highly recommend something like this!

Every week when a new letter was introduced we would add it to the pocket chart.  I would then print 4 pictures of words that started with that letter.  Once a week dd2 would take all the cards out, mix them up, and then have to figure out the right letter they went with. 

Also at the start of each month I would print up everything for the month from Preschool Palace and put them in 4 file folders (1 for each week of the month).  I also cut out pictures from magazines and put them in sandwich baggies and into the corresponding folders.  I would cut out words that started with the letters we would be focusing on that month, cut out pictures to go along with the color we would be learning, and cut out pictures with the same number of items of the number we were learning.  I preferred to cut everything out myself to make things go quickly and easily.

And of course we did lots of crafts related to the letter we were learning!

I got all my ABC craft ideas from Homeschool Creations and Moments of Mommyhood. 

We also added in the Language Lesson Book by Queen homeschool.  And I purchased a writing tablet with the wider lines so she could practice writing her letters and numbers.  I spent about 30 minutes 4x week doing sit down school with her....and now drumroll please....she just started reading Bob Books!

 (Yes I am patting myself on the back right now!).  Teaching your child to read may feel overwhelming, like you're trying to teach them rocket science, but it really doesn't have to be that complicated (of course I can tell you that now not 9 months ago!)