Sunday, March 27, 2011

Adventures in Learning


Xavier and Brodie are so interested in learning and I owe it all to Leap Frog's the Letter Factory. 

Xavier has learned to read small words. He can sound them out if all of the letters make the sound they are supposed to. We had quite an argument that did not actually end over the word "ball". He insists that it is   BOLL because the a makes the short o sound.  I even showed him a flash card with a picture of a ball and the word typed under it.  He still wasn't buying it. CURSE YOU ENGLISH LANGUAGE!!

Xavier has also been practicing writing his letters.  He was working on it one day in one of his workbooks and I could see he was getting bored. Then I noticed that the pictures in the workbook all looked sad. They were all frowning. Seriously not one smile.  I thought it was strange, but used it to my advantage. I said (for example) "Oh X! that frog looks sad! Its because its missing an F, now he is only a rog. Can you help him be happy?" So he wrote the f and then I let him draw a smile on the frog over the frown. We did this for every picture, even fence posts. He did like 5 more pages. 

We checked out his school last week. He is so excited! He said "There are sharks in my classroom!"  Their mascot is a shark. They have aquariums all over the school too. Its great. He starts summer school on June 1st! (a month long to get them use to the idea of school before it starts)


Brodie is obsessed with letters. He recognizes each one and knows the sound for it. We went to the Snake Parade before the St. Patrick's Day Parade and he enjoyed pointing out the letters on the side of the floats. The parade itself wasn't as interesting to him.

When we went camping in the Red Woods last Nov. there were humongous, gorgeous trees surrounding us and all he wanted to do was go up the the posts that numbered the campsites and point to each number as I read it. We went in circles so many times until I just picked him up and went back to our campsite because I wanted to relax in the unique atmosphere. Then we went back to it later, of course.

Akeem came to visit 2 weeks ago and he told me he was watching Brodie and X run around and chase each other. Brodie ran into the kitchen all worked up over something X did but stopped to read the sound of each flash card on the floor before chasing after him again. He found it hilarious.

I am going to have to get him "my baby can read" thats the next step, right?