Moon In My Room

My son has been fascinated with the moon, since he was a toddler. I think it started with the Scholastic video of the picture book, "Happy Birthday, Moon" (on the Goodnight Moon DVD). He loved the little bear, that talked to and shared a birthday with the moon. Another book we often read when he was little was, "Moon Plane", which combined his love for airplanes and the moon in one book!

Imagine how excited he was, when I brought home a moon to hang on his bedroom wall? It came with a remote control and at bedtime, we would lay in the dark, watching the moon move through all of it's cycles. It's been a couple of years, but he still loves this toy, which makes me believe kids of all ages will love this toy. School-age children who are learning about the phases of the moon will find it especially interesting.

KaiLan helped reinforce my son's love of the moon, with the Moon Festival episode. I'll never forget the day my 4-year-old told me he wanted to have a moon festival. He explained the entire itinerary that we needed to follow in order to have one: make lanterns, make moon cakes, take our laterns outside after dark and say hello to the moon, then celebrate by eating our moon cakes. He was so intent on having a moon festival, that I decided we should have one. We spent the afternoon shopping for supplies and decorating our laterns. Then, when my husband got home from work, we followed Grant's itinerary and we all had a great time celebrating our impromtu moon festival. Thank goodness it was a full moon on the day he decided to do this! How sad it would have been if there had not been a visible moon at the time?

Christmas Traditions

We have a few small traditions at Christmas that I like. Two involve storybooks about elves. The first is from a storybook called "The Puddinhead Story". It is the story of a very busy elf, who runs ahead of Santa on Christmas Eve, delivering pajamas to all the boys and girls. He puts the box containing the pajamas on the porch, rings the doorbell, and runs on to the next house. He's so fast, that most children have never caught sight of him. However, the delivery of the pajamas marks the fact it is time for the child to put on their pajamas and go to sleep, so that Santa can come deliver presents.  We started the Puddinghead tradition last year and the results were amazing. There was absolutely no arguing about going to bed.  Delivery of the pajamas can be tricky. Some people have neighbors deliver the package, ring the doorbell and run.  Instead, I bought a remote doorbell for about $10 on Amazon. When no one was looking, I put the package on the back porch and quietly shut the door. I moved away from the door and waited a few minutes, and then pushed the remote doorbell. My son went running for the door, but of course, no one was there!

The second elf tradition that we've started is one that most people have of heard of by now: Elf on the Shelf. I know that most people use the Elf on the Shelf, or Henry, as we call our elf, as a behavior modifier. Fortunately, we don't have to use ours in that manner very often. However, I do grow weary of hearing my son talk about what he wants for Christmas and asking if he can open presents yet. So, when he starts talking about presents, I have learned to point to Henry and say, "I'm not the one who needs to hear your list. Henry is". Grant will then walk over to Henry and have a very polite and lengthy, one-sided conversation with the elf about what he most desires for Christmas.

Teaching Your Child To Read

A little over a year ago, I decided to research methods for teaching children to read. I bought a couple books on the subject. The one I found the most interesting and agreed with the philosophy was titled: "Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever".  Here's what I felt the basic premise of the book was: read outloud with your child as often as you can. When you read together, make it a comfortable, stress-free, special time, so your child associates positive thoughts about reading. Read and read and read with your child. By doing this, you will teach them that reading is worthwhile and enjoyable. This will foster a desire in them to want to learn to read.

It's a great philosophy and I have read to Grant since he was born. Sometimes for hours a day. I know that the process of reading with him everyday has instilled a passion for reading inside of him. However, something was still missing from the reading equation for us. The Reading Magic book seemed to imply all I had to do was read to him and soon, he'd be reading on his own. Feeling a little frustrated, I asked a friend, who is homeschooling, what she had used to teach her kids to read.  She recommended "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons".

At this writing, Grant and I are on Lesson 30 out of 100. He can read the following sample sentences: "An ant can eat a seed. That seed is in the mud" from Lesson 29. I find this pretty impressive for a 4.5 year old, especially since a couple of months ago, he didn't recognize many written words.  This book helped fill that missing gap between desire to learn and how to learn that we were looking for.  I'm giving this book two big thumbs up!

Cuisenaire Rods and Miquon Math

When it came time to think about helping my 4-year-old prepare for kindergarten, I thought back to my own kindergarten experiences and what I enjoyed. Three things came to mind, one of which was cuisenaire rods. Of course, I didn't remember they were called cuisenaire rods. I had to do several google searches before I finally found what those color coded sticks that measured between 1 and 10 cm each were called.

Once I knew what they were called, I searched for cuisenaire rods on Amazon.  This lead me to the Miquon math curriculum. I was already intent on buying cuisenaire rods, but when I found a math program specifically designed to use with the rods, I was thrilled. I had been researching many different math programs for young children, but after reading reviews about Miquon on several different sites, I decided it was the curriculum I wanted.

I purchased the full-three year curriculum, all three teachers guides and a set of cuisenaire rods. For the last month, my son and I have been sitting down about twice a week with the Orange Book and the Cuisenaire rods, learning how to add and sequence. This week, we've started to learn subtraction. The visual aspect of the rods makes math concepts easy to grasp and my son is able to figure equations out on his own, once he's given direction.

If you decide to buy this, don't skimp.  The worksheets do not have any directions on them. You need the three teaching guides to go with the curriculum. They are: First Grade Diary, Notes to Teachers, and Lab Sheet Annotations. These books not only give suggestions of what is effective, but also what is ineffective when teaching math.  There are also suggestions of other activities you can do with completed worksheets. I think these added activities make the learning experience richer. The added bonus is my son and I are having a fun time together learning something new.

Some reviewers object to the fact that the workbooks are printed in black and white, instead of the brightly colored workpages children have come to expect.  Don't worry. The cuisenaire rods are brightly colored and they are covering the black and white pages while the computations are being done. In my opinion, colored pages would detract from the rods - which are really the main point of this learning method.

Bottom line: This method is time intensive and requires parental involvement. You cannot just hand the workbook and rods to the child and expect them to figure math out.  However, for about $90 you get three years of curriculum. Miquon and cuisenaire rods also makes mathematical concepts so easy, even a four-year-old can do first grade math.