The Notebook

When I was a little girl, I remember my mother working with me at the kitchen table. She had a composition book the she would prepare ahead of time and each day we would work on it a little bit.

During my recent office clean out, I found the composition book that had the handwriting of my mother and her then three year old Suzette. I went through it and was so excited that I decided to do one with Addie. 

The one thing my mother did with me was mostly letters and numbers. Because Addie is past that stage, our is more about teaching her to journal using pictures and a summary sentence (which our studies will actually require in the fall so this is good practice), reviewing our already learned reading and math skills, and a place for us to communicate with each other in written word.

Last night was our first activity in our book. I wrote out the names of four animals that she knows how to read (I underlined the "teams") and then had her draw a picture for each. When she finished she started to turn the page and said, "What's on the next page?" She had a good time and. That's what I wanted. Lord willing, this is scheduled to be an after nap activity. 

Some of the pages I have prepared are

What did I do today?

-air sound words

Something special is going to happen tonight

-at sound words

Poem reading and drawing

Draw our tomato plant

Write your name. How many letters are in it? (17 with full first and last names!)

Printable fillers with activities already on them.

This is a great way for her to write down (draw) special activities, plans, and moments that we experience this summer.

We chose regular composition notebooks, but I let Addie pick what the cover of hers looked like to make her even that much more excited to open it. Putting the date at the top of each page will be fun for her to look back on one day when she is doing her own office clean out.