Make any wall a word wall!

If you have a wall with nothing hanging on it, and a preschool aged kiddo that loves books and language play, you have got to check out word walls.  If you Google "word wall," all kinds of images come up.  Word walls are exactly what they sound like - they are an area where you display words, usually.  All you need is some alphabet cards and some word cards, and something to stick them to the wall.

I have done a different twist on it in my own classroom when I was teaching 2's. I used pictures.

Picture "word" wall

The only words I used in this picture word wall were the kids' names.  The rest were pictures of things that began with each letter's sound.  We did short vowel sounds - A for Alligator, E for Elephant, I for Igloo, O for Octopus, U for Umbrella.  With consonants we focused on the most common sound - for example, the hard "k" sound of the letter C.


RJ is three and is ready for sight words.  Sight words are the most common words you see in print.  Since the English language has some pretty complicated rules, "sound it out" isn't always an option for beginning readers.  Just like we memorize addition fact and multiplication tables in order to speed up the process of doing more complicated math, we memorize sight words in order to built speed and fluency with reading. 


RJ has been working with a great teacher all year, and I have been working with him this summer, so I decided to check out and see what sight words he knows and put those words on our word wall to start with.  Boy was I surprised!

Sight Words Word Wall

These are the words RJ knows so far.  Most of them are sight words but he also knows milk, hit, and play. All together, there are 27 words on the wall!  He knows many of the words on the Preprimer list of Dolch Sight Words. 


We are using our word wall to reinforce the words RJ already knows, and then he is using those words in other learning situations.  When we read a book, I trail my finger along the print and pause when I come to a word he knows, so we do a shared reading of the text.  We take words like at, it, and in and play word addition - for example, c + at = cat. You write C, make the sound, write at, and say "at," then blend the word together to make "cat."


I love working with my beginning reader.  He is so excited about his word wall, and I can't wait to see what words we add next!

I stay at home, and I won't apologize for it!

The whole age-old debate: Who has it harder? Working moms or Stay-at-home-moms? WMs work all day and still have to pick up kids from daycare, make dinner, do all of the things an at-home mom does.  SAHMs have a 24/7 job of house keeping, taking care of others before themselves, no sick days, no vacation days. Both have their perks as well. WM's have a career, hopefully a fulfilling one that provides extra income and makes the family comfortable.  She has life outside of her home and family.  A SAHM doesn't miss out on any of the big milestones of her children, because she's right there with them most of the time. I'm a SAHM and my sister is a WM.  We each have things we envy about each others lifestyles. We each have things that we know we wouldn't be able to stand. Both of us work hard and have healthy, happy families to show for it.

Recently I saw this floating around on Facebook: 

"Yes, my house can be a little messy at times, but I work a full time job, commute 4 hours round trip, and only have two days off a week. My husband works, too. If you work, and support your family, you understand. If you don't work, maybe you should get a job and see how the rest of us live, instead of making statements. Repost if you support the "real" working mothers out there!"

The first thing I thought when I read this was "Wow... I'm a measly husband-moocher-offer, and my house is STILL messy..." But the more I read it, the more it kind of offended me. "If you don't work, maybe you should get a job and see how the rest of us live.." 

I don't know that it is possible for me to have more respect for working moms and single moms. I cannot imagine doing what I do plus going to a 9 to 5, or doing it by myself.  But ALL MOMS WORK! My kids ARE my job, and I take them seriously. I work hard for them. That means that my house isn't always perfectly clean.  That means that there are days where I am ready to drop by the time my husband walks in the door. I don't keep a crazy schedule.  I don't try to line out my day.  I have a 3 year old and a 6 month old.  They are the schedule setters.  Some days they give me an easy schedule - they nap, they entertain themselves, and they are happy.  Other days they are sick, teething, don't sleep at night, are grouchy, and I spend my whole day hopping from one to the next trying to take care of what they need.  When I'm sick, I suck it up, unless I happen to get lucky enough to get sick on a weekend (ha!) in which case I have help.

I kind of miss the 9 to 5, but I don't envy WMs.  I know many of them get stuck with everything I just described, and more, on top of their careers.  But I won't apologize for being a SAHM, and I will absolutely defend my "job." SAHMs may not get a comment on their messy house (ha, I would), but I have heard all of the following:

"You're JUST a SAHM??" (incredulous look of shock) Yup. I am, and I love it.


"How do you find your life fulfilling when you have no career to show for it?" Well I guess happy healthy kids just can't top a successful career or anything...


"Are you going to go back to work when they start school?" Funny, I didn't realize I had ever LEFT work....

"You're a SAHM and your child goes to preschool?! Don't you feel lazy?"Yup... giving my kids social interaction for a few hours a day, a few days a week.... running errands without hauling them both in and out of strollers and carts.. Yup, you can call me lazy, works for me!

I am happy for you if you are a working mother who is happy.  I'm sad for you if you're a working mother that wants to stay home, because I know it sucks to be stuck doing something you don't want to do.  If  you have a career outside of the home, I applaud you. If you're a single mom, you rock!  Just please remember - I don't provide "financial" support to my family, but I provide all kinds of other support.  You support your family the best way you can, I will do the same. 

Puddles

I got that from my in-laws this past birthday. I need another one that says something about moms and sick days. I was miserably ill today. My poor boys had to go to the doctor with me, and then to fill my prescription. RJ had a hard time waiting. He didn't want to wait for the iPad. He didn't want to walk nicely in the store. He didn't want to wait patiently for our lunch in the Target food avenue. We made it through lunch, picked up my meds, and headed for the front door, only to find it pouring down rain. We waited it out, because the last thing this sickly mom wanted to do is get wet trying to buckle the kids into their seats.

About 15 minutes later, we headed through the wet parking lot towards the car.  RJ, of course, stomped at the first puddle he could find. I said "Oh no! You aren't going to jump in every puddle you see, are you?" He said, "Oh.... Sorry mommy..."

That's when I realized that I was being THAT MOM again. The harried, frustrated, snapping mom. Trust me, anyone who has had a 3 year old boy probably understands. We all have a little bit of THAT MOM in us, but I like to think I'm in control of that most of the time. I save it for moments like the Buc-ees story.

Sickly mommy often turns ino THAT MOM way too easily. And RJ really is a great kid. And puddles are fun. I looked at my sweet boy, and said "You know what, jump with both feet when we get to this next one!" The look on his face was priceless, and the gleeful laughter made me feel better. For a moment.

Test post and introduction

Testing? Testing??

I think we're good!

I'm starting this blog because, well, I'm hoping it will be interesting to some.  I'm a stay-at-home-mom. I like to think of it as being a domestic engineer, although my "for real" engineer husband says I just want to be an engineer because they're cool.  I have a beautiful family that I love taking care of.  We're very blessed that I can stay home with our kids and take care of them and our home.  Staying at home is a big job in the sense that you take care of the kids and run the household.  I have my ideas of what I "should" do as an at home mom, and one of those things is I try to find ways to save our family money.  My wonderful husband, Matthew, supports us very well, but every little bit I can save us is spending money in our pockets.  We can work on our house, take our family on vacations, etc. and have extra spending money if I'm saving us money in other places.

I scour the web for coupons, I check the sales ads at the stores, and I shop around.  I've recently begun to actually cost-compare stores by making a list and going "shopping" at two different stores, where I write down the prices of everything and then compare my totals.  I recently posted my first cost-comparison to a Facebook note, and I'll probably re-write it and post it here just because.

Another thing I've been very interested in lately is product reviews.  That's a whole post in of itself, for sure.

I'll probably post little blurbs here and there about my life - having kids is like free entertainment, people, I'm telling you.

Bare with me while I get it all figured out.  Happy reading :)