It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I was at Target recently and it felt a bit like Christmas. The aisles were packed with people looking to score a deal. Mothers had half crazed looks on their faces while their children begged for the latest. Target marketing was in full swing, boasting the latest and the best at the lowest prices and half of the shelves and bins were empty. I stopped and remembered that it is, in fact, the most wonderful time of year...back to school!

We have 24 more days until school starts. 24 days to soak up that last of the summer rays and 24 days for me to be with our 6 yo all day every day (whaaaa). I'm a SAHM, but this time of year I still get school fever and the former teacher in me kicks in. The single greatest thing that you can do to ready your kids for school is get their bedtime reinstated. But hey, I've got at least 21 more days to procrastinate that...Instead, I'm helping jog my 6yo reading skills.

It's amazing how much a brain can loose when it's not worked out regularly. I'm not trying to get him ahead...just regain what we lost over the Summer. Kids always seem eager to do a little bit of school work this time of year so take advantage of it.

Here's what I do for sight words. First of all, sight words, in general, are words that you cannot sound out, appear frequently in text, and should be known at first sight. What I do is cut write out sight words on slips of paper. I toss in a ton that I know my son already knows as a confident booster and then add in the next set that he needs to work on. I call them hug and kiss words because every time he gets one right he gets and x or an o on the back. Once he gets 3 x's and 3 o's on the back of the word, he can kiss that word goodbye. If you weren't given words to work with by your school, there are a ton of resources out there. I like to use Fry's lists...here's a good website that you can use.