There's been a lot of reading around the house this month. Alexa's reading has taken on another new level. By 3 she could read simple books with large letters and four to six words in a sentence. Now, at almost 4, she's started reading simple chapter books on her own.
We've been reading some of the books in the Magic Treehouse series. So far we've read the book about Louis Armstrong, the pirates and now, the first book in the series, about dinosaurs. I read the first three chapters during lunch today, and then, when I said I needed to get work done, she proceeded to read aloud the next five chapters to me.
Although Jared was very interested in letters before he was two, knowing the letter names and sounds, his interest hasn't progressed too much. He's very good at memorizing entire pages from books, though, up to five sentences at a time, pretty much word for word. I've been running my finger along those sentences to show him what those words look like, and have noticed his eyes following me do that, so I think he seems a little more interested now. He loves to read long, detailed picture books, like the DK history ones, particularly about castles and pirates.
There's also still a lot of pretend play about pirates. Jared creates different ships around the house, from the old changing table to turning the small, plastic table upside down.
The kids are also still into making mounds of things. At least lately, they're limiting what they use to make the mounds to pillows, blankets and clothes for the most part. The picture below is of their "cave." Sometimes they pretend to be Fantastic Mr. Fox and duck down into their hole before I can shoot their tail off.
The beginning of the month was pretty cold, so we tried to get to a local bounce house/jumping gym when we could. The last time we went I ran around for two hours and must have gone down that slide about 75 times. The kids wanted me to play tiger with them, and soon we attracted quite a crowd that wanted to join in the game, too. It was tiring, and I was the only adult playing with the kids like this, but we really had a fun time, and I've been meaning to lose a few pounds!
Our car went out and had to be taken in to the shop. It really was interesting how many things the kids learned from this experience: new vocabulary, what different parts of the car are used for, and how much things cost. When I told Alexa that one of the belts broke in the car, she wanted to see what I was talking about. So, when we got home, Steve showed her some things under the hood of the car. It's always so facinating to me to see what things interest the kids. It kind of makes me giddy sometimes to think I'll be able to see this first-hand, every day for at least the next 14 years.
Alexa's been in a Chutes and Ladders kick the past few weeks. Sometimes I can persuade them to take a little break and play one round of Cariboo Island, but usually it's Chutes and Ladders - the never-ending game. Those darn slides.
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