How toTeach Your Child to Read

I have posted here before about how I have used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

Today, I would like to show you how easy it is to use this method.

The book tells the parent exactly what to say and when to say it. Notice the red words prompt the parent to give an example, "Annie is a girl."

You can see in this portion, the red words prompt the parent to question the child's comprehension. "Who sat on the log? Who didn't sit on the log?"

Could it be any simpler?  There is no guess work or thinking up what to ask the child next.

Here is a video of my five year old doing her daily reading lesson. Notice how when she stumbles or gets stuck, I do not immediately tell her what the word is. Instead, I coach her on what the sounds say and see if she can work it out for herself, which she does when given the chance.

Oh, and please do excuse the Rastafarian dreadlocks. And the commands from the eight year old in the background for her baby sister to "BACK OFF! BACK OFF!" I'm still not sure what that was all about - it's always something in Smockityville!




This post is linked to A Soft Place to Land.

 Do you enjoy this blog? Subscribe in a reader.

Q & A Continued

See Q & A Part 1.
See Q & A Part 2.

Lisa at Bitsy Bee asked several questions, so I will take them separately.

What games or learning activities do you find are good to do with young children, aged 18 months to 3 years? 

See my post on "Homeschooling With Preschoolers".

Reading aloud is our primary learning activity for toddlers and preschoolers. It allows for all kinds of teaching opportunities like counting, identifying colors, letters, animals, etc.  The children also get to practice waiting, taking turns turning pages, and listening quietly.

We also use books on CD, puzzles, coloring, clay, and tracing activities.

Helping in the kitchen and with other chores is also a valuable learning activity. There is plenty of time for talking, counting, measuring, etc.


Do you have any tips for feeding multiple children of different ages? Does everyone have to eat everything off their plate at dinner or do they just serve themselves what they want out of large dishes? Is there any way to encourage my 14 month old baby to begin to feed hereself? I spend a lot of time sitting with her encouraging her to eat and feeding her from a spoon.

My husband and I serve the plates with very small portions. Anyone can have seconds on anything if all food on the first plate has been eaten. No one HAS to eat anything, but they will not get anything else to eat until the next meal time.

As far as babies go, we haven't used baby food or spoon fed our babies since the fifth one was born, five and a half years ago. When they are 8-10 months old and start to show interest in eating solids, we put them in a high chair with a few soft peas or Cheerios and let them practice picking them up and getting them to the mouth. I still breastfeed, so there is no urgency to make sure the baby gets a certain amount down the hatch. It doesn't take long for baby to get the hang of it, and after a month or so we can put out a variety of soft foods and a fair amount gets eaten.

From that point on, the baby realizes that she can feed herself and does so.


What ways do your older children help to look after or even teach your younger children?


My older children are a HUGE help with the younger ones, especially when we are getting out the door to go somewhere. Each big kid makes sure his or her buddy has on suitable clothing, socks and shoes, and a jacket if needed. They also buckle and unbuckle car seats when needed, which eliminates the need for mom to climb back and forth over three rows of seats.

The older children also read aloud to the littler ones. Every day when I am doing a reading lesson with the five year old, the second grader is reading aloud to the two little ones. This gives her an opportunity to practice her reading while giving the little ones some extra reading time, and I have a period of uninterrupted instruction with an easily distractable Kindergartner.

Finally, do you have any tips for curling hair? My hair is straight with a slight kink if I don't blow dry it but I would like loose curls that stay in all day. Any ideas?

I have been doing the Curly Girl routine for about three years now to encourage my curls.  See a photo of my Curly Girl hair.

Thanks for your questions, Lisa!

 Do you enjoy this blog? Subscribe in a reader.

Not Me!

Have you taken my demographics survey? Just 6 quick questions that will give me an idea who reads this blog. I sure would appreciate it a whole heap if you would take part! Results will be posted soon.

Being the Mother of the Year Who Has It All Together type, I certainly did not make my child a homemade counting activity that left out a number.

I did not remain clueless about the missing digit for an untold number of days.

And when I published a photo of that activity in my post on homeschooling with preschoolers, and my husband called from work to say, "Uuuuummmmmmm... where's eight?" I did not think that HE was the crazy one and tell him that I specifically remember putting an eight in.

In similar Mother of the Year style, I did not open the pantry, see the following site, and ponder it for 15 seconds before closing the door to walk away and pretend I hadn't seen it.

And if I had, I certainly would not have gone to get the camera to document it for the world wide web.


 Do you enjoy this blog? Subscribe in a reader.

Homeschooling With Preschoolers

A few of you have emailed or commented and asked how I wrangle handle preschoolers while homeschooling older children.

Here a few of the things I do. There are probably 101 variations for each of these ideas, and they are by no means the only things appropriate for preschoolers.

This is an empty egg carton that I have numbered. I set out a bowl of dried beans and the compartments can be filled with the corresponding number of beans.  This is a self directed activity the kindergartener does while the 3 year old and the 1 year old play at the kitchen sink.

I don't have a photo of that, but just imagine water and bubbles everywhere with a hefty dose of giggling, and you've got the picture.

Here the second grader is practicing her oral reading and keeping some little girls busy while I work with the big kids.

Here are the 3 and 5 year old playing with the doll house while I do math with the second grader.

These are just a few of the things I do when homeschooling with preschoolers in the house. I like to vary the activities when they get bored with them. We also use puzzles, train tracks, coloring books, and of course baby dolls.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section.

 Subscribe in a reader

Scheduling Chores

Since I have received several questions about it, I have done a video showing how a large family can schedule chores.

Let me know if you have any questions I didn't address, and please do excuse the strange eye darting. (I blame the drugs.)

See our list of paid chores.
See more about our schedule.




Subscribe in a reader

Managing Multiple Homeschool Schedules

Managing multiple homeschool schedules can be tricky even on a good day.

I am guest blogging at Life As Mom about how I manage. Hop on over there to check it out.

Back to School (Nature Study)

One thing I love about homeschooling is that we can set our own schedule.

Since my husband worked over the Labor Day weekend, we went ahead with our school schedule, which included Saturday and Monday.

He got his regular day off today, while everyone else was back at work and school, so look what we did.









We had the entire river to ourselves!










We photographed this previously undiscovered (by us) dinosaur footprint.






And this rare twenty-one month old beauty.

Our Homeschool Room Organization

I recently posted pictures of the tubs my children decorated to hold their school work, and I thought I'd show you here how I have organized our homeschool this year.




Each child has his or her own tub that holds all the books they need each day. That way, there will (hopefully) be no more, "I can't find my math book!" scenarios




All of the tubs are kept together in one location with the teacher's guides, resource books, and any other supplies that might be needed.



That bookshelf is in what was formerly the breakfast room, which might make a perfectly adequate and darling little area for an average size family, but which was overwhelmed by our numbers. I pushed the little breakfast table which once held our little family over against the left wall so there is room for more children to sit and work. The schedule and a map of the world are also posted on that wall.

That's what is working for me!

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

I have already shown how my boy likes to stand out in a crowd. I find it interesting that my girls would never think of shimmying up a wall for a photo op.

Occasionally, I'll notice other times when my boy stands apart from the girls, like this week when we decorated school tubs.

Here is an example of my nine year old daughter's tub.




She decorated all sides with very carefully and lovingly placed stickers and swirls.



Here are the tubs my three year old and five year old worked on. They spent a good amount of time carefully prettying up all sides.



Aaaaaand here is the boy's tub.

On Reading Aloud

*Have you entered to win my $200 Visa card giveaway?

My children love to have me read aloud to them. Even my twelve and fourteen year old love to hear books they have already read themselves before.

As I was reading aloud today from one of our favorites, Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers, I came across this passage:

"I don't remember Mother ever reading anything I couldn't understand, and I never heard any of the others say so either, but I don't think many people would have read us the same books she did. That day it was John Halifax, Gentleman. Maybe she skipped spots we couldn't have understood, and maybe some of it drifted over our heads, but at least we remembered the stories she read. I think part of the reason was that we could raise a hand whenever we wanted and explanation of any word or situation."

This made me think of how I like to read aloud from the King James version of the Bible. I like for my children to hear words that are "too hard" for them. I like for them to try to figure out what they mean and I like looking it up together to make sure.

Here is an excerpt from an excellent post at The Common Room about reading books that are "too hard" for children.

"I had very good reasons for thinking this stuff was too hard for her. And every one of my sympathetic, concerned, and loving reasons was just another way of underestimating what she was capable of doing, of keeping her trapped in the same ghetto of the mind she'd come from. For most people 'the soft bigotry of low expectations' is just a cheap slogan. For me, it's the very real way I nearly failed my child."

Please, read the rest of Deputy Headmistress's post here.

Half Price Notebook Paper

**Have you entered my apron giveaway?


Have you noticed that Walmart has the 70 page spiral notebooks on sale for fifteen cents? FIFTEEN CENTS, people!

FOR NO LESS THAN 70 CRISP, WHITE PAGES!

That is less than half the price, per page, of the loose leaf notebook paper!

I tend to get excited about the occasional sale item, and when that is combined with the smell and feel of new school supplies, well, you can call me down right giddy.

The spiral pages are perforated to easily tear out, if needed, but the best feature of these notebooks is that all the pages are contained. There are no loose papers waiting to be put into folders because they are already in a folder.

I have written before about my love for spiral notebooks. In our homeschool, every student uses a different color notebook for each subject. All work is done in the notebook and we don't have to worry about filing loose papers.

Since they are so cheap right now, and since the pages easily and neatly tear out, I didn't even bother with buying any loose leaf paper this year. I may or may not have loaded up with 50-ish or so of those spirals, though.

And the cashier may or may not have asked me if I was running a school.

Keeping On

Have you ever felt like giving up? No? Then I won't tell you that we are STILL trying to finish up some math before it is time to dive into the new school year.

Our math curriculum for the new school year arrived just yesterday and I felt a little defeated that it is nearly August and we are STILL chugging along on work from the last school year.

It turns out moving across the state in October with seven children takes a toll on daily schedules. Plus, there's the whole Never Been Involved in a Homeschool Group Before, So She Signs Up For Every Activity Under the Sun syndrome that kept us going to too many field trips and doing too little actual school work. Which we have been paying for all summer.

That's why I was so glad I came across this article today:
"What Keeps You Going When You Want to Quit?"

Now, excuse me while I go read it fourteen more times.

And then make a list.

And then do some math.

Tomato Worms

MaddieLynn got me two tomato plants for Mother's Day. Curiously, they have flowered, but never produced a single tomato.

After doing a little reading, I concluded that the it has been too hot for tomatoes. Either that or I'm not a good gardener. I suspect it may be the latter, but my official stance is that the life draining 130 degree heat is to blame. (Seriously, the thermostat at the pool read 130 the other day! I tried to take a picture, but you know... the whole camera issue.)

Anyway, I guess today the stars are aligned just so because my camera decided to function and even let me load the pictures!

Here is what we have found on our tomato plants. I guess if they won't produce tomatos, they might as well produce something we can study.


These are actually tobacco hornworms. They eat up to 4x their body weight each day and grow to about 4" long. They then bury themselves in the ground and morph into Carolina sphinx moths.

MaddieLynn made this little habitat with a hinged lid for feeding and a see through window so we could watch the whole process unfold.







We collected several sizes. Here is a teeny one.



See more tomato worm photos here.

Who? Me?!

Just yesterday, I checked my email and was so excited to see a message notifying me that Smockity Frocks has made it onto the list of "100 Best Blogs for Christian Homeschoolers".

Never mind that my husband immediately asked, "How many Christian homeschool blogs ARE there?!" Well, at least a hundred, obviously!

What that means, dear friends, is that you will never see cussin' nor spittin' on this here blog. Not to say that there is no spittin' in Smockityville, mind you. It's just that I have a moral obligation to shield you from such ill mannered goings on.

You're welcome.

Additionally, I will occasionally blog about forcing my children to read classic literature and do all manner of algebraic equations over the summer months. [wicked laughter]

Now, hightail it on over there to see who else is on the list!