Grace's "Cake Boss" 7th Birthday Party!

  Look at this girl! I can't believe she is 7 years old already (sniff). The clock seems to spin ever-faster with each passing year. Ok, enough with the sappiness! This smart, fun-loving, 7 year old gal happens to love browsing my Pinterest boards. So when she saw a pin of a "Cake Boss" themed birthday party, she GASPED (like only a 7 year girl can), covered her mouth with her hands, and squealed, "Please, please PLEASE can I have a party like that this year?" What's a Mom to say??

Lessons learned:

1. Must be stronger against the whiles of 7 year old sweet girls.
2. Must limit said 7 year old's access to Pinterest. Could be dangerous.

As you can see, she got what she asked for!

First, we served the little girls with little-girl favorites foods--chicken strips, chips, grapes, and fruit dip with grape punch (it was soo good, and cheap too--two cartons of Minute Maid Grape flavored fruit drink from Wal-Mart--at $1 each!), frozen overnight and set out to slush. Slurp!!

Next, we cleaned the food off the table for the second phase of the party--hat decorating. My talented, sweet Mama made these cute bakers' hats for the girls. We used multi-colored cupcake liners to make flowers with which we decorated their hats.

Then, the girls were itching to get down to business and decorate their cakes. I had pre-frosted a one-layer round cake for each girl to decorate and supplied bright, fun colored bags of icing ready to pipe. They also had sprinkles and pretty candy shapes to add to their creation.

(My niece, Erin, decorating her cake)

Gracie's friend Bree concentrating hard to get it just right!

They took it very seriously (note the concentration on her face).

My Mom made the aprons, as well, and a good friend of ours appliqued them for us. These were the girls' party favors.


The party was hit, and the girls had a blast! It was so much fun watching them enjoy themselves. Now...what will she ask for next year?!?

Summa-Time!!

Here we are, mid-June already! It's nice to forgo the normal daily rigors of school for a little while, and concentrate on other things, maybe less important, but much more enjoyable. Such as new baby nieces (one born last week, Eva Annelise Cooper), summer camps, slip 'n' slides, garden harvests and ice cream :).

 

This will also be the Summer of The Great House Hunt for our family (kinda sounds like a Nancy Drew novel, doesn't it?). The hunt is on, and we have already spent a couple of warm evenings walking through non-air-conditioned houses and their grounds. Exciting, yes? Hope to have a new house to show off by the first of the school year.

We celebrated our first summer birthday this weekend, when Gracie-girl turns 7! Emma will turn 5 in August. I will officially have 3 kiddos in school all at once this year--yikes!

 Sadly, our sweet dog Chinook had to be put down this summer, after he ate something poisonous and became really sick. The children, and especially Elijah, took it really hard, which has put somewhat of a damper on their summer. Consequently, we are now in search of a new family dog.

  Otherwise, we plan to lay low and keep cool however we can. Low-key is the way to be! How are you spending your summer?

Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons

 

 Last week, I posted a picture of this book on my Instagram and got lots of questions and showing of interest in it. It was kinda hard to address all the aspects of this method on Instagram, so I thought it would be a good idea to blog about it. There are many, many reviews for this book out there, and I'm sure they are all much better than mine. Be as it may, here is my take on this book. 

I have used 100 Lessons to teach my 3 oldest children to read, and they have all excelled by it. Elijah and Grace are both advanced readers, and were reading chapter books very early. By chapter books I mean Gracie (6) reads American Girl and Junie B. Jones, lickety-split. Elijah (8) reads anything he can get his hands on. We used Story of The World for History this year and he just couldn't get enough during school time and had the whole thing read through before the year was half over. Emma (4) is only on lesson 58 and out of all of them, she has been the latest to use this book. By latest, I mean she is much older than the other two were when they were at this point in the process. With the move, the baby, and her bout with hearing loss, we have just kind of "flowed" with it this year. She is doing awesome with it, though, and absolutely loves it, sometimes doing 2 lessons in a day.

How it works: Basically, this book teaches reading using the Distar method, which teaches a

child the sound of a letter before they learn the name of the letter. With each lesson, the child is given sounds that he/she learns to read by touching under that letter with their finger and simultaneously saying the sound aloud.

They learn the sounds one at a time, and practice verbally blending the sounds together until they progress to more complex words. This example is probably around lesson 30-something, although I could not find it in my book, so I'm just guessing (I found the image via google). As the lessons progress, the words get longer and more complex and the stories also get longer. Starting around lesson 13, each lesson/story begins to have a corresponding picture which is used to evaluate and enhance the child's comprehension of what they are reading. Each lesson also gives a letter/sound-writing exercise at the end, so if your child has not yet started writing, they can also be introduced to it here. I always designate a notebook for this sole purpose and use a sharpie for creating tracing worksheets.

Note: All 3 of my kiddos knew their letters way before starting this book, so I have not really used it to teach the alphabet, per se, only to teach reading. But it can be used to teach letters, phonics, and the whole shabang from scratch.

 The parent/teacher's role: This book walks a parent through, step by step, literally giving you a script (in red writing), telling you what to say and when to say it. Does it possibly get any easier than that? By now, with the 3rd child, I basically ignore the script and do my own thing, but I remember the first time I used it I was so worried about messing up and did every little thing by the book.  About halfway through, you will be skipping all the detailed wordiness and running with it.

By the time your little Suzy finishes this book, she will be reading on a 2nd grade level. However, her learning-to-read journey is far from being over. There is still much to cover, as 100 lessons teaches the basic blends and punctuation. My oldest two were finished with this book by 4,  and so this gave them a huge, HUGE head start on reading. However, I used Abeka Phonics/Reading for 1st grade and it was very beneficial, although they were a little bored with the reading, as they were beyond the kiddos in their class video. But they benefited greatly from it and needed the reinforcement of phonics and rhythm, etc.

The book provides a list of suggested books to check out from your library and read when the book is completed. I don't remember anything dynamic about them, other than the fact that my kiddos were totally stoked that they could actually read a book they had checked out at the library.  

My recommendation: if you are going to use this book, I highly, and I stress highly recommend doing it before kindergarten. Being able to read fluently gives a child such a head start and will help them excel in every single subject.  I am not going to say it will be easy. There were days when it really was a struggle and they just did not want to do it when it started to get hard. BUT. I did not allow them to stop just because it got hard and I pushed them through it. With each of my children, there have been points when they were like the Little Engine That Could climbing a steep hill and then one day, they topped that hill and it got easier and the rest of the book was a downhill breeze for them.

There have also been times when we have had to back off and take a break for a few days, maybe even a week, before coming back to it with a fresh perspective. But believe me when I say, there is no greater reward than seeing your little boy's face beam with pride when he reads a whole story by himself.  Especially when you know you taught your child how to read. What an awesome thing to claim as a parent, as a Mom. Your child can read and YOU taught him!

However, if you choose to wait until they are a little older, that's fine, too. You know your child, and they just may not be ready until 6 or 7. I have also heard of people using this book when their child is in school and is struggling with learning to read in the classroom. If yours is in that situation, give it a go! It can't hurt to try! 

Remember, every child is different, and although mine have taken really well to this method, yours may have a totally different learning style and just not take to it.  Do not be dismayed! There is tons of great stuff out there, and the beauty of homeschooling is if one thing does not work, you are free to toss it out and try something else. Good luck on your reading journey!

p.s. Feel free to ask any questions you may have and I will do my best to answer them! 

p.p.s. I ordered my book from Amazon, and if you wish to do the same, please use the link below. I am an Amazon affiliate and if you purchase through this link I will get a (small) commission from that purchase. Thank you!