Reading to her little brother...

Doing the happy dance!

I keep on posting about how great things are going because I want to remember these times for when things are little more difficult and I need encouragement.  So...with that...
She read Green Eggs and Ham today FLUENTLY, with hardly any assistance from me.
 I could have burst with joy!

A Math Breakthough in Lesson 22!

During math lesson today, Red added numbers in her head!  I couldn't believe it!  Rightstart is working---yay!  We learned today about partitioning the number 5 and she was able to work out several simple word problems in her head and using the abacus.  It was an exciting moment.  I know everyday won't be like this so I'm relishing it!

She read an ENTIRE BOOK!

I am just beside myself.  Red read an entire book today!  Yay!  Granted, I was on hand to assist with the more difficult words, but she did it.  We ended up reading almost every book in the library bag today (and it's a BIG bag.  See the number of books on the Read Aloud page with a completion date of today.  And that's not all that we read!  We read a big chunk of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh too.) because Tom Thumb was being a turkey this morning and I pulled a muscle in my back while wrestling him into time out. Thus, we couldn't go anywhere, which ended up being okay because we were under a tornado warning most of the afternoon. Thus, lots of book reading. 

I had checked out the Dr. Seuss book Fox in Socks at the library this past week.  Red brought it to me and asked me to read it.  I told her, "You know these words.  Why don't you read it?  I'll help if you get stuck."  It's a pretty sizeable book for an easy reader.  It took us quite a while --- maybe 15-20 minutes to read the whole thing with pauses to figure out unfamiliar words.  She's on around lesson 80 in OPGTR so she hasn't had lessons about "ee" or "-ough" or "ea" or "ew" or "ow" so we had to stop and learn some phonics rules as we went along.  The last few pages were a struggle because she was a little weary, but she wanted to finish so we plowed though and did it. 

Daddy was so proud that he suggested a Dairy Queen run as a treat so that's what we did.  Cones with sprinkles all around!

Our Summer Display and a party to boot!

We changed our display over for summer on Monday (the first day of summer by the way!) so here it is:

All the cards are from Red's 5th birthday which was yesterday.

As you can see, we changed over the cloth to something a little more vibrant, our beehives and butterflies are out, and we have one lonely mushroom.  The coneflowers broke off our new plant I just planted in the yard, thus, our lovely floral display--- ha ha!

Red's birthday party involved walking with her four friends to 711 for Slurpees, followed by lunch and running in the sprinkler.  Here are the results---

It's great to be five!

Making tile patterns

We were supposed to be dividing piles of tiles into groups of ten, but my little artist had to do something else---

Our Spring Display

After going through a hardcore Waldorf phase a couple of years ago, one of the things that remains is our seasonal display.  Also called a nature table in Waldorf circles, it is customary to decorate your display with colors to suit the season, items collected from outside by the children, and figures and other symbols of the season.  Here is a photo of our spring display before it gets changed over on Monday the first day of summer:

We made the wool fairy for our summer display last year, but Red insisted that she needed to come out early.  She found the bird's nest at Greenfield Village today outside the Edison house.  When we got home she filled it with some of her sidewalk chalk eggs.  The flowers are from our trip up north, as is the wee bird with nest candleholder that I bought at BeeDazzled.  Can't wait for the summer display!  And here's Red swinging today---

I love summer!

Enjoying the last days of spring...

We did some finger painting last week. 

Then we went to my parents' house in northern Michigan for some outdoor fun.  The kids caught a toad.

and a newt...

And we did some swinging at the park with Papa.

Good times!

Yay--- counter clockwise circles at last!

Red successfully wrote a zero and a nine today with counter clockwise circles.  I thought I'd never see the day, but I did!  Yay!  There's always something else to work on (now it's keeping her pencil on the paper instead of lifting between each part of a letter or number), but it was nice to see progress.

She's finally well, but still getting up several times in the night.  It's been really rough on me because I'm a crab cake if I don't get enough sleep. 

On a separate exciting note, Tom Thumb spent his second night in a big bed last night.  Woo hoo!  Granted he still wants to sleep in the crib for nap, but it's a move in the right direction.  I'm trying to train him to sleep .
in a bed prior to our July vacation since he no longer fits in a Pack and Play and there won't be crib where we're going.

I love when I have good news to report!