1st day off the beaten path...

This was my 1st day off the beaten path. We haven't done math yet, but I hope to keep up with BJU's math. We had library program this morning, which cut into our day. But here is a run down of our new method:

Reviewed phonograms: A, E, I, O, U. Introduced AR, OR, and ER/IR/UR.

Introduced the 1st 11 words from the top 250 list: to, and, a, is, in, it, you, that, of, the (can't remember the rest!) We were already familiar with most of these words.

Later: Played a game with dice and our word & phonogram sounds. It was a dinosaur themed board that I printed online. I colored the squares 2 green & 1 purple. Everytime DD5 landed on a purple square, she had to read a phonogram card. If she landed on green, she had to read one of our 11 vocab words. I found that the 3rd sound for u, AR, OR, and ER/IR, UR were not sticking, so I made a mental note to work on those exclusively.

After the game: we read 2 library stories and reviewed our phonogram cards before each story. I also slipped AI and AY in the bunch, since they only have 1 sound (long A) and we've studied these before from BJU's K program. We hammered away at the 3rd sound of U, AR, OR, ER/IR/UR and I think we have it!! We'll practice again before dinner & bedtime.

Tomorrow I hope to add: EAR and WOR, which both have similar sounds as ER, IR, and UR (errrr as in her), except wor is pronounced "wer". The example in WRTR for EAR is "early" and WOR is "work". EA has its own phonogram (E, e, and A). I may add 2 more phonograms tomorrow, but haven't decided. I want these to sink in so that they make sense with our vocab words. Hopefully our phonogram knowledge catches up to our vocab knowledge.