WordFul Wednesday and a Wordful from a sponsor....

OK, not really a sponsor, but I do have some interesting info. to talk about before I get to my WW picture.

I love all things educational-especially when it comes to my two favorite things, computer skills and reading. Well, while I am patiently waiting for Sophie's reading light to click on, I have noticed that she is incredibly good on the computer. So, when I was contacted about a new educational website-I of course checked it out---JumpStart.

I love JumpStart for many reasons. The coolest part is that not only is Sophie learning hand/eye coordination alternating between the mouse and the arrow keys, but ALL of the games she's played so far have required her to practice skills that will enable her to READ and do MATH. Sophie has already spent hours playing on this site. I LOVE IT! You can play on the website for free, or you can become a member and get access to a million other things available on this site. There are also CD-ROMs for sale. The CD-ROMS open a huge resource for learning, plus it offers ways not only for parents to communicate with other parents (awesome,) but you can also leave messages for your kids AND track their progress if they play without you present. Sophie is still closely monitored by me so that she doesn't wander off into a 'older' zone and get frustrated. I want her to keep loving this as much as I do.

This would be a great website for any pre-schooler, home-schooler, or even after school programs. The entire place is really neat--caters to a bunch of ages--and is a 3-D virtual world that can compete with any of those silly video games out there!

Here's a screen shot from something Sophie discovered last week in Adventure Land for ages 4-8. (I personally prefer Story land for the 3-5 year olds, but I let her choose where she goes first, so she will go to where I want her to after about 15-20 minutes or so.)



At this point in the game, she was looking for the treasure chest with clothing so that she can continue, and in the meantime she found this slide that she can crawl up and slide down. She's having so much fun--time flies when she is on this website.

If anyone is interested I can give out one 3-month trial membership. Just leave me a comment and I will get in touch with you. (Be sure to leave me your email so that I can.)

OK--on with my WordFUL Wednesday.......................

Lately getting pictures from Sophie has been a struggle.

This is usually what I get.

Nice!

Not really.

But I don't want to leave this post with a picture of Sophie's backside--So I put this picture up.

Washing her hands may not seem like a big deal--and certainly not a milestone--except that on this day when I snapped this photo it was because it was the first time I didn't have to ASK Sophie to wash her hands!

Hand-washing is just as much of an issue as getting a picture, so I certainly needed to document her fabulous cooperative spirit. I even asked, "Whatcha doin' Soph?"

She responded, "Well when I came in my hands were really dirty so I came in to wash them so you would let me have a popsicle!"

Work it baby---work it! (what movie?) I can honestly say she OWNS it! Great job mouses--you rock!

And YES, she got her popsicle. Couple of 'em!

A Monday Moment

I have to thank my KUMON workbooks for this one. Yesterday, once we were up, dressed, and fed, I decided I would just let the natural thing happen-whatever Sophie wanted.

So, I asked her, "Do you want to play something or do a learning activity with me?"

How thrilled was I that she picked a learning activity? Of course, Sophie will choose the #2 option I give her about 95% of the time so I admit I'm a little manipulative. Anyway, I was planning on doing some more practice with letter sounds on Starfall, but she didn't want to be on the computer, so I grabbed the workbooks instead. It turned into a solid 2 hours of scissoring, gluing, and tracing words with pencils. Sophie was having a ball using her scissors. We were using the Let's Cut Paper workbook from Kumon and ended up doing about 6 pages!

She only ended up tracing a couple of words, and it's hard to see, but when we got to the dog she insisted on printing the letters herself instead of tracing. I was shocked when she made the perfect lowercase letters--written upside down no less--to spell the word 'dog'. She figured out that if she made a 6 and turned it over it was a little 'G'.

I was amazed--Sophie was proud--and it was the perfect home school lesson I have never planned. Whoohoo for spontaneous teaching and memorable moments!