Delayed in Charlotte

Returning from Cancun, we had a five hour delay in the airport, then an unplanned overnight in Charlotte. The Kid did great with all the waiting and delays; she had far more patience than I did!

The delay in Charlotte was so long that we slept there and still had a few hours to fill. We discovered the Discovery Place and had a wonderful morning exploring.

Learning on Vacation for Me

The trip to Cancun that I talked about in the last post was the first time in years that The Kid and I have traveled together without The Husband. What did I learn? That I need to be stricter about our routines when away than I do at home. The first two days were full of meltdowns (from The Kid, I didn't always have patience, but no full scale meltdowns!) before I realized that if I was exhausted, she was, too. Once I instituted a bedtime and a wake up time, she turned into a wonderful little traveler.

Learning on Vacation for The Kid

The vast majority of our vacation looked like this:

Playing in the sand and the shallow waves. And, of course, I forgot the camera when we went to El Rey, a smaller Aztec ruin site, the one part that looked like more traditional learning.

But some things that The Kid did get to experience: hearing lots of Spanish, eating new foods, watching the tides change, building with sand, and airports.

Forming New Habits

Why is this so hard?

I wrote last post about trying to form writing habits for the month of November. Didn't go so well for me. The Kid and I decided that in November, we were also going to try to form the habit of doing yoga every day. It would be a great habit to form, fun for both of us, but it hardly ever happened. We got the great Kids Yoga Deck, chose a handful of poses when we remembered, but did yoga maybe ten days last month. We're still working on this, though!

For December, she decided to try to form the habit of clearing off her art space when she was done working on something. I suspected this would not go well. She loves creating, and often the first step in a new creation is pushing aside the old creating materials, which is sometimes enough to put her off altogether, so it would be a great habit. Not happening so far, though.

I decided this month to work on Spanish every day using DuoLingo. It's amazing the excuses I've come up with to delay - mostly being sick and/or tired. Then a trip to Mexico, where I did at least work on my Spanish. I really need to get on this. We're planning a trip to a language school in Guatemala this spring and I want to make as much progress as I can through the free resource before paying for a tutor!

Writing Goals Update

At the beginning of November, I posted that The Kid was doing the Young Writer's Program for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This required that she write (well, dictate) her story nearly every day to reach her goal of 1500 words by the end of the month. It took until the last day, but she did it! Yay Kid!







I also posted that I was going to try to blog every day. Obviously, that didn't come even close to happening. Probably just as well, as I'm still pretty sure I don't have 30 days of new stuff to say.

Do It Yourself

The Kid has been asking to "make things". Now, she makes a LOT of things. She has a craft desk and a lot of supplies and she is making stuff all the time. This time around, she meant something where she would have a finished product good for something other than her pretend play. A while ago, I had stumbled on Red Tool Box kits, but dismissed them as being too old for her. A closer look, though, showed they they have a Juniors line that has a recommended starting age of 4.

I showed her the possible projects and she was most excited about their candy maze. We ordered, it arrived, and she made. The instructions are very clear and she was able to follow them largely on her own, with some help from me to make sure things were more or less square. The junior kits require only wood glue and a hammer. This was The Kid's first time using a hammer, and I did provide a final whack on most of the little tacks to get them flush, but she did pretty well!

This conveniently came just before Halloween, so she soon had Halloween candy to put inside!

RightStart Math Manipulatives

I remember being so excited when the big box came from RightStart, but then came the challenge of organizing all of it. I thought I had it all down and then I switched from Version 1's Level A to Version 2's Level B and acquired a whole new crop of stuff. Ack!

This shelf contains all of RightStart's manipulatives and the books for level B. It is about 13" deep and 24" long. I have two pieces of "equipment" holding everything - nine 4.5 cup Snapwares (you can find these at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and use coupons) and one fairly unique bookend.

This section has the books, fraction chart, geometry panels (which we haven't used yet - those may need to be stored differently later), abacus, and a couple odds and ends a little too big for the Snapwares. I know it looks a bit messy, but it stays put!

The Snapware section is all the small manipulatives, with labels so I can quickly grab what I want. The Snapwares aren't quite as deep as the shelf, so the math balance tucks in neatly behind them.

Kindergarten Curriculum and Resources - Halfway point!

I posted six months ago with what we were intending to use for this kindergarten year. As always with an ever-changing child, there have been modifications. Here is the updated and annotated list of what we are using.

Reading (3x weekly)
Read alouds from a mom-made reading list at her ability level

Math (3x weekly)
RightStart B
Time-Life I Love Math series
MathStart level 2 and 3 books by Stuart J. Murphy
Added Dreambox 
Math games as talked about in this post

Spelling (1x weekly)
All About Spelling 2 and 3, with adaptations for handwriting - she got bored with spelling after book 2, so we have discontinued spelling lessons for now

Science (1x weekly, but she'll request more and do these much more than "planned")
Lego Education Early Simple Machines
The Private Eye
The Happy Scientist videos
Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding
Caterpillar-to-Butterfly kit - this has been rescheduled to next year to line up with BFSU
Child-friendly Microscope
Various Thames and Kosmos sets 
Memberships to local children's museum and the zoo
Added Snap Circuits
Added Science in a Nutshell kits
Added Lego Education Basic Structures
Added Dino 101 course on Coursera (which lined up beautifully with our pre-history)

Spanish (1x weekly) - this subject has been by far the hardest to find a good fit!
Salsa Spanish
DuoLingo

Risas y Sonrisas
Song School Spanish

Handwriting (1x weekly)
StartWrite software
Adding New American Cursive

History (1x weekly)
Mom-made Prehistory year (Big Bang to early man)

Art (every other two out of three weeks)
Usborne Big Drawing Book
Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas
Artistic Pursuits preschool level

Music (every other third week)
The Story of the Orchestra

She has just decided that she wants to stop taking violin at the end of this month. She continues to enjoy gymnastics and swim, and has added dance.

Problem Solving for Young Children

I think a lot about how to develop creative problem solving skills in my daughter. Many things come easily to her and I don't want her to get the idea that it will all come easy to her. Including problem-solving skills in her day encourages her to think a bit deeper, persevere, and try multiple possible solutions. Here are some of the things I use to help with this:

Lego Education Simple Structures. This has 16 simple builds with Duplo and each build has a component of exploration and testing. For example, the project we did this week included building three Duplo towers in different shapes, putting them on a platform, and then tilting the platform until each fell over. Comparing the towers that fell first to the ones that fell last, she then tried to guess why some were more/less stable and build new towers that would fall sooner or later. Through the process, she discovered that height, weight, and the distribution of weight in the towers effected stability. I had started to skip over this kit and go directly to the Early Simple Machines kit, but I'm so happy I backed up and decided to start with this one instead. A child with more Duplo/Lego building experience might be able to skip this first kit, though.

Mighty Mind and Super Mind. These start out very simple, using two semicircles to form a circle. They progress quickly, though, to shapes that need nearly all the pieces in the kit to fill in. The two products are sequential, with Mighty Mind having the first 30 puzzles and Super Mind having the next 30 puzzles. I highly recommend a magnetic set so small hands aren't knocking the pieces out of place.

Kanoodle. Another spatial awareness puzzle, I think of this one as an analog version of Tetris that eventually works up to 3D puzzles. In its early puzzles, however, the guide tells you where to put all but two pieces, so you can start out simple and work your way up.

Rush Hour and Rush Hour Junior. One last spatial awareness puzzle for the list. We only have the Junior version right now because these got difficult for her fast. The concept is simple - vehicles are arranged on a grid and can only move forward or backward in their traffic jam as you try to maneuver one of the vehicles off the board. There is an app version of the game as well, which only costs a few dollars.

No Stress Chess. Chess is THE classic strategy game, and this version breaks things down to make the game very easy to learn. I learned alongside my child with this and now we both know the basic rules. After we get better at planning our own strategies, we will move on and find a good chess strategy book. (Recommendations, anyone?)

Can You Find Me? In general, I have been disappointed with the workbooks from Critical Thinking Company, but this is an exception. Though I still find it easier than the level it is aimed at, it was the one CTC product for younger children that seemed to really require my daughter to think.

Monster Physics. This iDevice app has several challenges in which you need to use virtual materials to build contraptions. Better for my daughter, it has an open space to tinker with the materials to build whatever you would like.

Violin with a young child

The Kid fell in love with the violin shortly before she turned three. We bought her a very inexpensive violin to play with. At the time, our only goal was that she learn how to treat an instrument with respect and maybe learn how to hold the bow. I have no background in music and my husband's music background does not include strings.

When she was 3.5, she asked for real lessons. Even living in a fairly musical town, it turned out to be a bit challenging to find an instructor for a 3 year old. We did find a lovely teacher trained in Suzuki. Next step was to get her a violin that could actually hold a tune. This turned out to be more difficult than expected as well. She is small for her age and still needed a 1/32 size violin, which is an uncommon size.

We're now 10 months into lessons. Progress is incredibly slow, which is to be expected with a 3-4 year old. Attention span is low. When she started the 30 minute lessons, she could only actually focus for maybe the first 10 minutes of class. Now, she can focus for 20-25 minutes of lesson most weeks. Her practice times need to be kept short, with 10-15 minutes usually being her limit. Even with nearly daily practice, that only adds up to 50-60 hours of practice over an entire year.

When we started, my primary goal was for The Kid to learn how to play the violin. Over the last year, I have changed my goal. At this time, my primary goal is for The Kid to continue to love music and to enjoy her violin enough to tolerate practices. Let's face it, practice isn't always fun for older kids. A four year old is unlikely to see how sustained practice will benefit her int he long run. We went through a period of stricter practice times and it all became a fight, and she was ready to stop playing the violin even though I do believe she still liked the instrument. I backed off, we dropped most practice time for a while, and she regained her love of the violin. At this time, we're constantly trying to find the balance - enough practice to make some form of progress and little enough to not become a battle.

Playing with Math

I embrace math as one of my favorite subjects, but I know that it is one that a lot of other parents dread. There are so many great resources for math play in the early years!

RightStart Math - this is our main math curriculum. RightStart teaches using manipulatives and games. The curriculum is scripted, which can make it easier for math-averse parents to feel comfortable. The approach is a blend between Singapore/Asian math methods and Montessori.

Toss Up! - This is a strategy dice game. Each die has red, yellow, and green sides - green rolls are worth points, red sides can make you go bust. The goal is to score 100 points faster than your opponents and the math is primarily in the scoring.

MathStart series by Stuart J. Murphy - These books are divided into three levels. In general, the first level is preschool-kindergarten math, the second level is K-2 math, and the third level is grades 2-4. Short, easy reads, with each book covering one topic.

Fill or Bust - a combination of cards and dice. The cards give you a goal or a potential reward for each turn, the dice are the scoring mechanism - 5s are worth 50 and 1s are worth 100, goal is to reach 10,000 first. I have adjusted the scoring for younger players to divide the typical scoring by 10 - 5s are worth 5 and 1s are worth 10 in this system, and you play to 1000.

Time-Life I Love Math series - each book in this series covers a wide range of math topics and problems.

Can't Stop - requires adding of single digit numbers, and you end up learning a bit of probability as you go along. This is an older game, no longer made; I grabbed the board my mother had from when I was a child.

Math Dice and Math Dice Jr. - you roll a target number and then try to match it using the other dice and any math operator you wish.

"Just let her play!"

Anyone who has spent much time on a homeschooling forum has seen people ask about early education. Or perhaps they have asked the question themselves. And inevitably some portion of the responses are "Just let her play!".

But what does this mean? A common translation of play-based early learning is to do no instructional time. Others translate it as no formal instruction or no curriculum use.

I offer another version, and that is that "play" can be defined as "any activity the child enjoys". If a child enjoys learning to read, that can be a form of play - even with formal lessons. If a child enjoys numbers and math, there is no reason not to teach place value and mathematical operations. If a young child is enjoying reading and math, but doesn't want to do them today, don't do them today. This is really a pretty simple concept - and parents of young children should be further trusted with these decisions rather than continually being told only to "let them play".

NaNoWriMo 2014

The Critter heard me talking about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and decided that this was meant for her. With some encouragement from a forum I regularly participate in, she is now officially signed up and has set herself a word count goal of 1500. My husband and I will be scribing for her.

While I have no desire to participate in NaNoWriMo, I've decided to challenge myself to writing a blog post daily for November. I'm horrible about keeping up, and not altogether sure I have 30 days worth of anything to say, so I'll have to see how this goes. If nothing else, maybe it will help me decide what I really want to focus this blog on - a narrative of what my daughter is doing? Homeschooling information? Gifted education? Parenting stuff? Random other? I definitely will not be setting a word count goal, as I have difficulty enough being brief!

Kindergarten Literature List

For the most part, picture books are for The Kid to read aloud to me. The chapter books are for me to read aloud to The Kid.

Picture Books (listed from lower reading level to higher, we will read them in this order with exceptions for some seasonal titles)

Lucky Ducklings by Eva Moore
The Dot by Peter Reynolds (we will read some of his other books as well)
Two Times the Fun by Beverly Cleary (four longer stories in one book, less pictures)
Zen Shorts by Jon J Muth
George and Martha by James Marshall
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
The Lion and the Mouse by Bernadette Watts
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
Andy and the Lion by James Daugherty
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert
Story of Babar by Jean de Brunhoff
Three Little Pigs by Paul Galdone (we'll read a variety of other folk tales by Paul Galdone as well)
Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott
Frida by Jonah Winter
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
Three Questions by Jon J Muth
A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams
Abuela by Arthur Dorros
Chanticleer and the Fox by Barbara Cooney
The Knight and the Dragon by Tomie dePaola
Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss
Alexander and the Terribly, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
Diego by Jonah Winter
Eyes of Gray Wolf by Jonathan London
Island of the Skog by Steven Kellogg
Princess Knight by Cornelia Funke
Elizabeth Leads the Way by Tanya Lee Stone
Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting
The Girl Who Spun Gold by Virginia Hamilton
The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry
The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter
Dogteam by Gary Paulsen
True Story of Stellina by Matteo Pericoli
Woman Who Outshone the Sun by Alejandro Cruz Martinez
Koko's Kitten by Francine Patterson
Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse by Leo Lionni
I Can Hear the Sun by Patricia Polacco
Verdi by Janell Cannon
How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning by Rosalyn Schanzer
Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
Toy Brother by William Steig
Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau
Sea Chest by Toni Buzzeo
Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems
Dragonfly's Tale by Kristina Rodanas
Going Home by Eve Bunting
How the Stars Fell Into the Sky by Jerrie Oughton

Longer/Chapter Books 
Minpins by Roald Dahl
The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame
My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett (there are sequels to this)
Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
Bunnicula by Deborah Howe (there are sequels)
Stuart Little by E.B. White
Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelance (there are sequels)
The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner (there are sequels)
The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary (there are sequels)
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White
Tumtum & Nutmeg by Emily Bearn (there are sequels)

Accelerating All About Spelling

We will be finishing up level 2 of All About Spelling soon. The Kid is an early reader and a fairly good speller, but she wanted to be "taught" spelling. I chose All About Spelling because the letter tiles made it easy to adapt for a non-writer. However, we learned fairly quickly that the letter tiles are also s-l-o-w. I started having her spell the words aloud and then we moved to having her type out the words and sentences on the iPad. Sometimes we use the letter tiles for new teaching, sometimes I simply write on a whiteboard.

I discovered early on that the program starts out pretty simply. For some students, this may be a great confidence booster. For other students, this may create boredom. The Kid fell into the latter camp. We've accelerated the program in two ways.

Acceleration Option #1:
Complete only a portion of work from each lesson. We generally settled on all of the new teaching, 1/2 the main spelling words, none of the extra words, and 1-2 dictation sentences. Review was limited only to rules she had more difficulty with. We generally covered a full step in one lesson this way.

Acceleration Option #2:
Pretesting. I know that some people pretest using the full list of words for each step, but I wanted a quicker assessment. For each step, I choose 2-3 words from the main spelling lists that are great examples of the rule being taught. Pretesting 5 lessons at a time therefore has a list of 10-15 words. I do include ALL of the rule breakers that are covered in any lesson. If she gets the 2-3 words from a lesson correct, then we put a sticker on the progress chart for that lesson and we're done with it. If she gets any wrong from that lesson, we cover the lesson on another day. If a rule breaker is correct, we move on; if a rule breaker is incorrect I teach it along with any lesson coming up. We would cover a step in one lesson.

Here is an example of how Option #2 worked for us in practice:

1. Pretested steps 10-15 in Level 2. (Step 11 contained a word bank, but no new rules, so this covered five steps of new rules.)
          Pretest words: rule, June, size, rise, grapes, hoses, been, queen, deep, cold, child, her, super
2. Look over pretest. She missed grapes, hoses, been, super. These are from steps 12 and 15, plus one rule breaker. I went ahead and taught the rule breaker immediately. We marked steps 10, 11, 13, and 14 as completed on the progress chart.
3. The next week, we covered step 12. I taught the rule for pluralizing vowel-consonant-E words, then dictated three phrases and two sentences for her to spell.
4. Next lesson, we covered step 15. I covered the new teaching, dictated three phrases and two sentences.
5. Next lesson, we did a pretest for steps 16-20. Repeat as above.

Anyone else accelerated All About Spelling? How about with higher levels?

Pre-history Year

Kindergarten is a great time for learning about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals! I wanted to start with the Big Bang and go through early man - basically everything before Ancients.

Resource List: Books 
(I bought the first four on this list, the others were obtained through the library)

- Usborne Encyclopedia of World History

- The Story of Everything: From the Big Bang Until Now in 11Pop-up Spreads by Neal Layton
- Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Sharks and Other Sea Monsters by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart

- Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart
- Life Story by Virginia Lee Burton

- When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and TetrapodsStalked the Earth: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life Before Dinosaurs by Hannah Bonner

- When Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth, and Bugs Began toSwarm: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life Long Before Dinosaurs by Hannah Bonner

- When Dinos Dawned, Mammals Got Munched, and Pterosaurs TookFlight: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life in the Triassic by Hannah Bonner

- Evolution by Joanna Cole

- The Human Body: How We Evolved by Joanna Cole

- Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story by Lisa Westberg Peter

- Bone by Bone: Comparing Animal Skeletons by Sara Levine

- Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution by Steve Jenkins

 Resource List: Videos

(all available through Netflix)

Walking With Monsters series

Walking With Dinosaurs series

Walking With Beasts series

Walking With Cavemen series

The Planned Sequence for 36 Weekly Lessons 

1. The Story of Everything: From the Big Bang Until Now in 11 Pop-up Spreads by Neal Layton
2. Usborne 14-17; Dissect owl pellets and discuss how it relates to how scientists deduce information about the past
3. Life Story by Virginia Lee Burton
4. Usborne 18-19; Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story by Lisa Westberg Peters
5. Usborne 20-23; Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution by Steve Jenkins
6. Usborne 24-29; Walking With Monsters: Water Dwellers
7. When Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth, and Bugs Began to Swarm: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life Long Before Dinosaurs by Hannah Bonner
8. Usborne 30-33; Compare megalodon and great white shark, including comparing their sizes using a sidewalk and chalk. (Activity from Intellego K-2 unit on Evolution)
9. When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tetrapods Stalked the Earth: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life Before Dinosaurs by Hannah Bonner
10. Usborne 34-37; Walking With Monsters: Reptile's Beginnings
11. Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Sharks and Other Sea Monsters by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart
12. Usborne 38-41; Walking With Monsters: Clash of Titans
13. When Dinos Dawned, Mammals Got Munched, and Pterosaurs Took Flight: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life in the Triassic by Hannah Bonner
14. Usborne 42-43; Walking With Dinosaurs: New Blood
15. Usborne 44-47; Walking With Dinosaurs: Time of the Titans
16. Usborne 48-51; Walking With Dinosaurs: Cruel Sea
17. Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart
18. Field trip to zoo, focus on reptiles and birds, discuss evolution
19. Usborne 52-55; Walking With Dinosaurs: Giants of the Skies
20. Usborne 56-57; Walking With Dinosaurs: Spirits of the Ice Forest
21. Usborne 58-59; Walking With Dinosaurs: Death of a Dynasty
22. Bone by Bone: Comparing Animal Skeletons by Sara Levine
23. Field trip to museum to see fossils, including dinosaur bones
24. Usborne 60-65; Walking With Beasts: New Dawn
25. Usborne 66-69; Walking With Beasts: Whale Killer
26. Usborne 70-73; Walking With Beasts: Land of Giants
27. Usborne 74-77; Walking With Beasts: Next of Kin
28. Field trip to Wild Cat Sanctuary, discussion of evolution
29. Usborne 78-81; Walking With Cavemen: First Ancestors
30. The Human Body: How We Evolved by Joanna Cole
31. Usborne 82-85; Walking With Cavemen: Blood Brothers
32. Field trip to the zoo, focus on primates, discuss evolution
33. Usborne 86-89; Walking With Beasts: Sabre Tooth
34. Usborne 90-93; Walking With Cavemen: Savage Family
35. Usborne 94-97; Walking With Cavemen: The Survivors
36. Usborne 98-101; Walking With Beasts: Mammoth Journey

Kindergarten Curriculum and Resources

The Kid has decided that she wants to start kindergarten. Next week.

*shrug* Okay. Whatever you want, kid.

She says the difference between kindergarten and what we have been doing is that some stuff will be required instead of optional and she will get to do "trickier math".

Reading (3x weekly)
Read alouds from a mom-made reading list at her ability level

Math (3x weekly)
RightStart B
Time-Life I Love Math series
MathStart level 2 books by Stuart J. Murphy
Considering a subscription to Dreambox

Spelling (1x weekly)
All About Spelling 2 and 3, with adaptations for handwriting

Science (1x weekly, but she'll request more and do these much more than "planned")
Lego Education Early Simple Machines
The Private Eye
The Happy Scientist videos
Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding
Caterpillar-to-Butterfly kit
Child-friendly Microscope
Various Thames and Kosmos sets 
Memberships to local children's museum and the zoo

Spanish (1x weekly)
Salsa Spanish
DuoLingo This moved too fast for my daughter and she became frustrated. She asked for something that we did together and not something online. So we added:

Risas y Sonrisas

Handwriting (1x weekly)
StartWrite software

History (1x weekly)
Mom-made Prehistory year (Big Bang to early man)

Art (every other week)
Usborne Big Drawing Book
Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas
Artistic Pursuits preschool level

Music (every other week)
The Story of the Orchestra

While we are taking the summer off from lessons, in the fall she will likely continue swim, gymnastics, and violin.

Preschool Literature List

Do you get lost in the library trying to find good books? I certainly do. I can't remember if we've read it before, I have no recollection of the books I read in early childhood and therefore don't remember which ones I liked, and I always want a good mix. I referred to a lot of other lists to compile a list of my own, including the reading lists from Moving Beyond the Page, Sonlight, Five in a Row, and Read Aloud America. I took recommendations from posters on discussion boards that I frequent. These were nowhere near all the books we've been reading for our preschool year, but they were the ones I considered worthwhile to put on a list and make sure I checked out throughout the year. I kept this to 52 books - one for each week of the year, though we didn't necessarily do one per week.

1.       Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs (Tomie DePaola)

2.       A Pair of Red Clogs (Masako Matsuno)

3.       What Do You Do With a Tail Like This (Steve Jenkins)

4.       Angus Lost (Marjorie Flack)

5.       Caps for Sale (Esphyr Slobodkina)

6.       Rosie’s Magic Horse (Russell Hoban)

7.       A Splendid Friend Indeed (Suzanne Bloom)

8.       The Glorious Flight (Alice Provensen)

9.       Owl Babies (Martin Waddell)

10.   Dandelion (Don Freeman)

11.   Nurse Clementine (Simon James)

12.   Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree (Gail Gibbons)

13.   Little Bear’s Little Boat (Eve Bunting)

14.   Grandfather’s Journey (Allen Say)

15.   Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse (Kevin Henkes)

16.   Ella Sarah Gets Dressed (Margaret Chodos-Irvine)

17.   Petunia (Roger Duvoisin)

18.   Dinosaurs Big and Small (Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld)

19.   Papa Piccolo (Carol Talley)

20.   Swimmy (Leo Lionni)

21.   A Rainbow of My Own (Don Freeman)

22.   The Cat in the Hat (Dr. Seuss)

23.   Dogger (Shirley Hughes)

24.   Zin! Zin !Zin! A Violin (Lloyd Moss)

25.   My Lucky Day (Keiko Kasza)

26.   Little Blue and Little Yellow (Leo Lionni)

27.   An Extraordinary Egg (Leo Lionni)

28.   Not a Box (Antoninette Portis)

29.   Little Red Riding Hood (retold by Trina Schart Hyman)

30.   A Bus Called Heaven (Bob Graham)

31.   There’s a Wocket in My Pocket (Dr. Seuss)

32.   Toot and Puddle (Holly Hobbie)

33.   Tiger Can’t Sleep (JJ Fore)

34.   Umbrella (Taro Yashima)

35.   Curious George (H.A. Rey)

36.   Amber on the Mountain (Tony Johnston)

37.   When I’m Sleepy (Jane R Howard)

38.   Night of the Moonjellies (Mark Shasha)

39.   Wheel on the Chimney (Margaret Wise Brown)

40.   Ride a Purple Pelican (Jack Prelutsky)

41.   Farfallina and Marcel (Holly Keller)

42.   The House on East 88^th Street (Bernard Waber)

43.   The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge (Hildegarde Swift)

44.   It’s Mine! (Leo Lionni)

45.   Cranberry Thanksgiving (Wende Devlin)

46.   Bear Shadow (Frank Asch)

47.   And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (Dr. Seuss)

48.   Mouse Soup (Arnold Lobel)

49.   Mole and the Baby Bird (Marjorie Newman)

50.   Beatrice Doesn’t Want To (Laura Numeroff)

51.   Frog and Toad Are Friends (Arnold Lobel)

52.   Winnie the Pooh (A.A. Milne)

Advanced Reading for Preschoolers

Since The Kid started reading, she's really taken off. I was having trouble keeping up with her and finally found two tips that saved my sanity (for now).

Tip #1: Stop looking at lists of "books for _____ graders" as those quickly got into books that my daughter was not interested in/ready for. Just because she can read at a third grade level does not mean she has any interest in books with few pictures. She is still a preschooler! Better is to look at lists of "read-alouds for preschoolers/kindergarteners" and just acknowledge that she can be the one reading aloud instead of a parent.

Tip #2: Organize! I'll find a great book, know that there is a series, and then forget all about it. So, in the spirit of organizing, I started a few GoodReads lists. You can use these as reference or add to them yourself!

Preschoolers Reading at First Grade Level
Preschoolers Reading at Second Grade Level
Preschoolers Reading at Third Grade Level
I'm editing this post to add one more list:
Preschoolers/Kindergarteners Reading at Fourth/Fifth Grade Level