Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in Sacramento, CA

Today we had our official first, 1st grade parent-teacher-student conference.  It was a little different from what I remember as a kid because my 6 year-old led the first part of the meeting by escorting his dad and I around the room and showing us what he has learned so far this year.  The second part of the meeting was typical, the teachers (he has two) went over his test scores and progress so far.  One of the things I was really impressed with was how far his reading has come in the past few months and how well they have been tracking this progress.  When he was in preschool we did the usual letter and sound exercises at home, in addition to a lot of reading aloud.  We knew this would help his apptitude and ability to read later and I have to say it's really paying off! 

One of the series of books we have faithfully read for years are the Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne.  You can find them at Amazon.com or any bookstore.  They are a series of books about a brother and sister team who discover a magic treehouse which transports them through time to solve puzzles and problems.  Everyone of the books are a really fun read and the author manages to work in educational tidbits at every turn.  We began reading these books aloud when my oldest was three and now he is reading them to his little brother!  Check these out next time you go to the bookstore, you can buy them really reasonably (about $3.99 a piece) or another great tip is to go on ebay and buy lots of them for next to nothing!

The other great tip I have in regard to reading was a website that my son and his classmates work on in school called Starfall.  If you go to www.starfall.com they have a ton of really fun games that are all centered around reading skills. 

When kids are little it is a great reward in itself to read aloud to them.  For me a bonus treat is seeing the payoff of all those Dr. Suess books I memorized - my baby boy now can read them himself!