Satori Smiles

Daddy liked Satori’s artwork and we thought we’d give him his own copy.

We then thought it would be a good idea to practice handwriting with penpal letters, as we haven’t done that for awhile. First up, a little girl who just had a birthday (name erased for privacy). I LOVE Satori’s colorful balloons she drew!

Head’s up for a giveaway! My comments are now set for me to approve first (so people can’t see previous answers), so the first FIVE people who comment to this post will get their choice of a Little Gems necklace! The lucky winners can choose any necklace on this page. All you have to do to win, is to tell me who this little girl is, and where she is. Again, the first 5 comment repliers get a free necklace gift! (Valued at $38-54, on sale now in my Sling Outlet store)

On Thursday, 8/27, 10pm CST, the comments will be shown and contest will be over, and I’ll contact the winners for their choices.

After we whizzed through the “f” section in Explode the Code, we did an art project about FISH (hey it starts with “F”). We took this idea out of our new Usborne Art Treasury book. We are going to be doing many art projects during the week, and normally I want them to be all her own and not just “copying” another artwork, but this was too irresistible. This is based after Paul Klee’s “The Goldfish”. In his painting, the fish absolutely glows in the dark murky water and commands your attention. So we tried it ourselves… Mama sketched the fish, Satori colored it all in with oil pastels…

Then she brushed over it all with dark blue/purple watercolors. As you can see, the watercolors “beaded up” on the colorful oil pastel parts!

watercolor over oil pastel

And our finished artwork. Satori dubbed it “The Aquarium”.

Satori's Aquarium

Mom did get carried away with the watercolor and didn’t dilute with water enough, so we ended up having to brush it up to soak up some of the paint to have the fish show through. I think it would have turned out perfect if we diluted the watercolor more with water, but we learn something everyday. I kinda like the swooshes we made when we brushed it up, it looks like water currents!

You may have noticed that at one point I had listed Explode the Code (ETC) phonics program up on our curriculum. I had these all set to go as a supplement to our OPG reading program. However, the “Get Ready, Get Set, Go for the Code” books were just too simple for Satori at the time. She honestly learned all her letters and sounds in one night, by watching a Leapfrog video!

So over the summer we started our Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching reading program, but it can be dull. She gets each concept very fast. However, even though she masters the new sounds quickly, it is altogether a different thing to be able to read sentences fluently! She sounds them out. She can sound them out quickly, but nonetheless, sounding out words detracts from fluently reading/comprehending books.

Explode the Code workbooks

So we’re taking a break from our normal reading program! Back to Explode the Code. We’re going to try these again, as she likes her HWT handwriting workbook so much, maybe this fall she’ll get into these workbooks.

Unfortunately, she has progressed to ETC  book level 3 now. The ones sitting on top of the above pile, that we already have on hand, are the A-C “Get Ready” books which covers consonants, which she knows very well already. But we’re going to try to go through them anyway superfast, like we do our HWT workbooks. In fact, she goes through her handwriting books so fast that we do need to stop and practice now. And luckily, ETC books cover lowercase letter handwriting practice! If it wasn’t for the handwriting instruction in ETC, I would probably wait until we got book 3 in.

We haven’t learned lowercase “f” yet in our HWT book, but we went over it today in her ETC workbook.  You can see she needs practice! But not too entirely bad for a 4 year old’s first time writing “f”s…

lowercase "f"

I am not sure how it will work out going through these early books (A-C), but I did order Explode the Code Books 2-5 last night, which takes us way beyond what we’ve learned so far in OPG.

Get Ready for The Code A
Consonants b, f, k, m, r, and t

Get Set for The Code B
Consonants d, h, j, n, p, and s

Go for The Code C
Consonants c, g, l, q, v, w, x, y, and z