In today’s post I am going to share all about fluency. Fluency is one of the five pillars of reading. Once our kiddos understand phonics and phonemic awareness (also two of the five pillars) then we can move on to comprehension (another pillar). Yay!

I always feel so much better when I hear what other moms say they don’t do. I don’t cut the crust off my kids’ sandwiches. I don’t bathe my kids every single day. I don’t read a bedtime story every single night.

The girls and I thought poetry teatime was so fawncy. We just had to do it! I’m not sure how I came across poetry teatime. Probably in the beginning of my homeschool research I stumbled across the idea and thought it would be a fun way to bring in poetry.

Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel Mary Ann work so hard! Together they can dig in a day as much as a hundred men can dig in a week. Unfortunately for them, the Industrial Revolution is about to put them out of business!

We go to our dear friend’s house every year for New Year’s. They throw a fun, kid friendly party for us and their family. Last year I got the sense that my children have come to expect the celebration to go a certain way. There was lots of whining about if and when things were going to happen.

Mako gets a new pair of red clogs. She loves the way they sound when she walks and runs. She loves how everyone admires how beautiful they look.

Minna wants to go to school but she doesn’t have a coat. Her father dies before he can get her one so the Quilting Mothers decide to make her a coat out of scraps of fabric.

Madeline goes on adventures through Pah-ree (Paris but said the french way)! Madeline is the smallest of twelve little girls. She is the most daring, brave, and bold little girl.

What a sweet memory to have captured forever in a book! The story is a true one from the author himself.

Oh my, Ping-a-ling! Sorry for the Friends reference. You know… when Janice calls Chandler Bing-a-ling. 😂

I cannot remember how I came across Five in a Row. Once I saw that it was literature based, I was sold. I love children’s picture books. I thought this was a fantastic way for my girls to learn and have exposure to social studies, science, and art.

This is the second part of the picture study for Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting. Each painting has two parts. I believe I chose five Vincent Van Gogh paintings for this unit. There should be ten weeks of picture study lessons!

My daughter loves art so I thought a picture study would be such a great opportunity for her to be exposed to some of the world’s greatest artists! I don’t subscribe to one particular style of teaching but picture study seems to be popular among the Charlotte Mason community.

Make your own DIY rice sensory bin with an ocean theme. The girls love burying the animals and then digging them out. 🐳

I called up a colleague and said, “Please tell me the best way to teach reading and what to look for in a reading curriculum!” Though I have taught reading, I’ve never taught a kiddo from scratch, let alone picked out a curriculum.

Oh my goodness golly! Every time I tried to Google, “How to pick a homeschool?” or “What to look for in a homeschool?” I got curriculum reviews upon curriculum reviews. That’s not what I wanted.

I am not going to pretend like I know anything about the Reggio-Emilia approach to learning. From what I understand it is used in a lot of Montessori learning environments and pertains to observation or documentation.

I thrive on structure but I also like the freedom to choose or to be creative. So our schedule has structure but it also gives me the freedom to do things when I want.