What we're doing, what we're reading: October 2018

Hi everyone!  It's been a while since I posted. Life got a little crazy for a while, as it is wont to do. My two girls started school again, one in all day kindergarten and one in 2nd grade. I am so happy and so fortunate to have the schools we do and teachers who work their rear ends off for my kids, but since I am who I am and my girls are who they are, I still supplement at home. ;)

My 2nd grader accelerates in math and she does a program through her school called Aleks which allows her to self pace her instruction. I can't recommend it enough, and because we're so happy with it, I haven't really been doing anything extra in that area anymore. We do still do puzzles and critical thinking games, my favorites are 24 and Set.  The great thing is that these don't feel like work to her, they feel like playing and bonding with mom and dad, while still working on both her math skills and a lot of the emotional intelligence/flexible thinking skills she needs too.

My kindergartner is adjusting to being in school all day every day like a champ. She is way ahead of the game in reading, but she's always been a bit behind in fine motor skills. She recently "graduated" from private occupational therapy, but I try to carry over some of what she learned there so we don't lose ground. Some of the things we've been doing that don't feel like work are playing with therapy putty and working on mazes from Brainy Maze




We've been working our way through this amazing list of Picture books for October from Sarah at Read Aloud Revival, and I can't say enough good things about Sophie's squash. It's a beautiful book about impermanence and regrowth and the perfect book for fall.




For our evening read alouds, the girls and I are working our way through Harry Potter 4. Sigh. I tried to wait because this is when it gets dark, but I can't blame them for loving it so much.





My eight year old is DEVOURING the entire Frog Princess series, and everything else she can find by E.D. Baker.





And me? Ever the YA fan, I'm adoring Storm Runner by Jennifer Cervantes, the second book published on the new Rick Riordan imprint at Disney.  These books tell stories from amazing writers of color about their own culture's mythologies, and they are AMAZING. Definitely more on this later.

I hope you're well! What have you been reading?