Play Doh Mountains and Reading

We're just finishing up our Week 15, and I wanted to share a quick and fun project we completed the other day: Play Doh Mountains!

I pulled this idea off of C3:

file name: science-week15-mountains.pdf

user name: TammyOostdyk

I realize pretty much everyone is finished with Week 15, but it's a simple and fun little project (great rainy-day review activity!), so I did want to share. Even though over half of this school year is over (no way!!), I still print off things I like and put it in my Cycle 1 box for next time. 

In other news. . .

I've been inspired lately to 'up our game' in the reading department. We're almost done with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and I want to just do more. Can't get enough reading, right? So, we've added two things to our daily routine. First, I made Mary her very own reading chart, which you can see in the pictures below.

(Yes, above the chart are the weekly objectives from Crecia's lesson plans at CCing it one day at a time. Awesome! Thanks again, Crecia, for giving some order to our home school!)

Each time she reads a 'reader' to me or the hubs, she crosses off a box. When she reads ten, she gets a trip to the treasure chest. When she reads ten more, we go get frozen yogurt at her favorite place, Sweet Frog! She's really excited about her chart, and she's already read 12 books to us since Saturday! Way to go, Mary!

Our other big addition is adding 20 minutes of independent reading to our mornings.

These timers are fantastic for just about everything! No annoying tick, tick, tick; they're just so great! Today was our first day of independent reading, and I set our timer for 20 minutes, anxious to see how this would play out. Mary did really well! She read quietly, and I read quietly. How nice! I'm reading this amazing book that my awesome friend, Tammi, recommended:

Soooo good!

So, we do the independent reading first. Then, she can snuggle up to me and read me her readers. It was so relaxing, y'all. I know everyday won't be this way, but this morning was just so peaceful! Thank you, Lord!

How did this all come about?

Seeing this infographic on Pinterest was the first little nudge to start our independent reading:

This article tells a little more about these statistics.

Wow, right?!

Happy Funday Monday, friends!