Reading

Last night we were driving home and from the back seat I heard Shelby reading from a book that my mom had given us from her school. It is a book that has each letter on a page with that letter in words on another page to help children learn phonics. Here is a list of the words she read all by herself:

ant, fan, mask
cat, crab, cut
desk, dog, sad
egg, net, pelican (she had a little help on this one)
fern, flag, frog
gum, gorilla
hug
dig
jet, jogger
basket, king, sink

She has been working on sounding out short three letter words, but I was totally floored and proud when she started busting out the blended sounds of some of these words. I have no idea if this is what normal 5 year olds can read or not, but to me it is huge and I can't wait to see all that she has stored up in that mind of hers!!!

And then some other things.....
Last week and this week is practice school at the Montessori school. Last week Shelby went with all the other returning primary students and this week JP is going with all the new and rising toddler students. Since all the other schools are in session some of us got together after carpool for practice school last week for a picnic down by the river. It was great fun and I was so glad to get out for a bit. These last few weeks have been so hot and we are all getting a little stir crazy being inside all the time so it was a welcomed outing. All the children had so much fun and you couldn't ask for a more beautiful setting. Here is my attempt at the group shot. I am sure someone else got a better picture with their camera, but this one is kind of fun. We are missing Carson and you can see a little bit of Tucker behind his sister.


Along with the heat keeping us indoors, we have also had a ton of thunderstorms lately. We love to play in the rain, but not the lightning so we haven't gotten any playing in the rain shots this year like we usually do. Finally one day last week the rain came alone and so we went out to play. JP got all geared up and when we got outside the rain slowed and then stopped:( Nevertheless, I was able to get this picture of my little man before he took off the rain gear.