Wild Thing Starts Kindergarten

Wild Thing is my middle child.  He is not like his sister the Crafter.  She was the one who threw her book at age two and a half and cried about not being able to read the words.  She was reading by four and a half.  It would have been sooner, but I was scared to try to teach her to read until she turned four. 

Now back to Wild Thing.  He was not ready to read at 2.5, or 3, or 4, or 4.5.  He was busy being a boy.  The Historian would comment from time to time about what the Crafter was doing at the same age, and he would question why Wild Thing wasn't getting started with school yet.  I kept saying that he wasn't ready yet.  I let him play Starfall on the computer.  I read plenty of books and pointed to the words.  He just didn't seem ready.  They spark wasn't there.

Wild Thing turned 5 right after Christmas.  The Historian said that he needed to begin Kindergarten.  So I dusted off Phonics Pathways and began.  It has been slow going.   Now I am pleased to announce that Wild Thing has read not one, not two, but three Bob Books.  He is so proud of himself. 

Math is going very well.  Kindergarten Saxon was boring to him, so we are working through Singapore 1A.  I haven't wrapped my mind around this one yet.  He really seems to understand it.  What's even stranger is that we do a lot of it orally because his writing is really, well it looks like a five year old boy's writing.  Sometimes we do "block math" for a change.


He also enjoys pattern blocks. 

 

I'm back...I think

January was a whirlwind of activity.   The Crafter's play practice schedule pretty much took over.  Add some colds (Sweetie and the Crafter), an ear infection (the Crafter),  and a round of the dreaded stomach flu during play week (Sweetie, Wild Thing, the Historian, and me), and you can see why the blog has been neglected. 

I thought that I would get back into action last week.  After all, the play did have a successful three night run and everyone was on the mend.  I guess the cat felt neglected and decided to need emergency surgery.  Fun.  This cat is eleven years old.  He had a cataract in one eye that detached.  I noticed that his eye looked bigger.  I took him to the vet, and she said that his eye was getting ready to rupture.  Five hundred dollars later, we now have a one-eyed geriatric cat.  After recovering from surgery, he is like a new cat.  He's been catching voles, antagonizing the dog, and playing again. 

So this week has been fairly ordinary.  We haven't had any extra appointments.  I've been trying to get us back on some sort of schedule.  We have been doing "school lite" since Thanksgiving, and it's time for that to stop.   More later.

Wordless Wednesday: Haircut Edition

Sweetie Before

Sweetie After