Resources for the weekend

First, let me say that school is going really well so far.  Isaac has adjusted swimmingly to being in the afternoon class and having a substitute teacher.  He keeps telling people that there are "lots of kids in my school."  He's one of 6 boys in his class.  There are only two girls in his class again this year.  I'm sure he'll be flirting with both simultaneously in no time.  He came home yesterday in an incredibly good mood- so much so that trying to ask him questions was like trying to make sense out of someone who thinks happy hour starts at 4pm and ends with a spoonful of sugar and speed.  I did manage to find out that they colored pumpkins, ran around, and that a boy in his class was mad and crying when his mom left.  We talked about being nice to classmates that aren't used to school yet, making sure we try to play with them, etc.  I'm telling myself that he remembers that conversation, but I really think he was on too much of a school high. 

I think afternoons are working well for him because we don't have to rush around in the morning to get ready.  If he has a hard time getting to sleep at night it's not a big deal because we have alllllll day to get ready to go to school.  You know what that means?  Morning chores, play group, helping me at the grocery store, going to the library, and always going to school bathed and teeth brushed.  Yes, I think this will be a fine year.

In the meantime I wanted to pass along some recent resources that have worked well for us:

1) www.starfall.com was suggested to us by my blogger friend, Christen.  It's a very simple website dedicated to helping kids learn to read from the bottom up.  Isaac, with his new mouse skills, can operate the ABC section by himself and loves it.  (Oh, and with those same mouse skills managed to call his grandmother on Skype all by himself while I was out of the room the other day.)  Thanks for this, Christen.

2) I know I already mentioned the Leap Frog Letter Factory dvd in a previous post, but let me warn you about how affective it is for those of you with children prone to echolalia. If you don't want to be listening to this almost every moment of every day, don't rent it from the library.  Crap, he just caught me linking the video and it is now sparking a fresh onset of echoing.  In all honesty, this video has really helped him learn his letter sounds in a very short period of time- not just echo them.

3) Next, I highly suggest the Meet the Sight Words 1 dvd.  Our library has it, but it's at our house right now so you'll have to wait.  Eh, they probably have more than one copy (or youtube.com).  Anyway, this paired with pointing out and spelling/sounding out sight words while reading books to Isaac has helped spark some new phonics skills.

Happy Friday!