Conference, Lessons and Teaching my Girls

*Note: The following is a list of my garbled thoughts. I'm still working on organizing them in my head. There just seem to be an overwhelming number of them. Does pregnancy contribute to this?

Conference was wonderful. We loved it. The week before conference I had been really studying what to teach my girls. I've been reading a TON and teaching Emily how to read. I started searching through for the "best" books to be reading my children. Not just randomly going to the library and grabbing what I thought looked interesting. After spending quite a bit of my time researching what I should be teaching my children I was interested in noting what seemed to be the theme of the conference, Teaching Our Children. One of my favorite talks (how can one possibly choose just one favorite) was the first talk of the Saturday Afternoon Session. http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-1207-11,00.html

I then spent the next week looking into the things I had found the week prior to conference a lot more closely. We've implemented a few things in our home for this week and I'm eager to implement more. We're keeping up with Emily's reading lessons, which she is doing great at. But this week I added a "scripture time" where the girls color while I read the Book of Mormon for 10 minutes and quiz them periodically about what we're reading (we have not replaced this with our Family Scripture time in the evening with Daddy. We just concentrate a lot more on reverence with Daddy because that is a 4-handed-parent lesson ;). We've also added, "scripture memory" (see my links at the bottom of the post for the system) and we've been working on the 1st Article of Faith. Emily has it down and Meredith almost has it down as well, so I'll probably stick to it for another week and let her get it before I move on. The one thing that has surprised me is how much clarity Emily has gained in saying the scripture by memory. It sounds wonderful! And is music to her mother's ears. We are also continuing to read our "Let's Get Ready for Kindergarten" book. Meredith loves it. She's learned her left and right hand, she knows all of her capital letters and their sounds, most of the lower case letters and most of her colors and shapes. Emily has upper/lower case letters and sounds, shapes, colors, and quite a few numbers (although numbers is what I will be focusing on for the next few weeks, including telling time.)

Anyhow, here's my list of "favorite links" that I've found.
simplycharlottemason.com, but in particular the Scripture Memory System found there.
http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/memorysys/
Also, there's a book list, or a "book finder"
http://apps.simplycharlottemason.com/
But, I think my favorite book list I found was here, http://www.amblesideonline.org/index2.shtml
The Ambleside website I'm still digging deeper into and love what I see.
And then, more websites for handwriting worksheets
http://www.writingwizard.longcountdown.com/multi-word_handwriting_worksheet_maker.html
http://www.handwritingforkids.com/

Speaking of handwriting, I need to search for a book like this next one to improve my own, less than desirable, handwriting.
http://www.pennygardner.com/italicsbk.html

What We're Up To

Today is a wonderfully rainy day. (Rainy days are wonderful as long as you don't end up with a week of clouds. I am completely addicted to the sun!)

So, we are doing some of my favorite rainy day activities, like reading. And making homemade, hot chocolate pudding. Nathan doesn't like "hot" putting. He only likes the store bought stuff. So sad. So, we made it while he was gone.

I also went looking for a list of books I can read to the girls, but don't necessarily involve the pictures. The list is for books to read to children or for them to read at certain grades. I'm reading "Through the Looking Glass" to the girls, basically, Emily. (Actually, it's on the 7th/8th grade reading list, but Emily is sitting down and enjoying it with me. There is a picture every other page, and it's just enough to keep her interested in the book to look at the pictures and get to turn the pages. And hey, I'm interested in reading a lot of these books too.

http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content/timeless.html

I'm excited because I've been collecting a lot of the books on the list, and some of them I'm going to start reading to Emily. She's also been working on reading all by herself. I have the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" and so far, I LOVE it. I think it is perfect. Meredith isn't quite ready to sit through one of the lessons, she will sit through all of two parts (and there are typically 8) of a lesson. She does ask for it to be "my turn." It makes Emily want to learn more. :) I'm not really eager to start Meredith anyway. I'm teaching the girls the sight words together though.

Fun Activities for Kids (Coloring Pages, Learning, etc.)

So, there's so much fun stuff on the internet. I just thought I'd share some of the stuff I've found.

Tracing Letters Emily loves to have me help her trace the letters

Coloring Pages

Preschool Flashcards

Create your own handwriting worksheet (Emily loves to write her own name. Try this one out.)

File Folder Games (on to-do list)

File Folder Games (on to-do list)

If you've found some things like these, especially some fabulous Preschool stuff, I'd love to hear about it.