First Day of "School"

So the public schools went back in session today, which always puts me in the frame of mind to get our learning kicked back into gear as well. This doesn't really mean anything other than me being less on the computer and cleaning up the house and more available to say "yes" to board games and setting up projects and going places. I may also strew more learning toys about in strategic locations and invite more involvement into my own projects, although in truth I'm making it a personal goal to be more open to assistance in my "grown up responsibilities" at all times.

I was astounded today to see how much Noodle's reading has progressed! It all started when we were returning from MonkeyGirl's parent/child gymnastics class (she's SO excited to be back!!) and the boys asked if we could play Silly Sentences when we got home. Sure, we can do that! So we get home, set out the puzzle-style words designed to fit together in a limited number of ways (articles only attach to adjectives and nouns, and nouns to verbs on the other side, then prepositions, which feed back into articles), and off they go putting sentences together. We don't take turns, we just all do our best to make the silliest sentences we can. Stuff like "The furry, blue banana climbed on the sad, scary duck." Except the game doesn't include commas, which bothers me. They have periods, why don't they have commas for multiple adjectives?? Yes, I am a grammar nerd. Learn to love it.

Anyway, back to the Noodle, he was doing a great job reading almost all of the words in the game, and even with the pieces that had pictures on them (nouns and colors) I could see him moving his lips to sound out the accompanying words. Then after lunch we played another game, it's some pirate octopus treasure game with beginning and ending sound blends that you can mix up to form multiple words (sw- goes with -ing, -ap) and again Noodle worked to sound out his own words and mine. We played that game three times!

Tex played with us once and in contrast to last year when he was still working hard to read each blend, most of them come to him quite instantly now. He's still not ready to give up the security and speed of someone else reading to him, but I'm confident that he is making steady progress. He is certainly interested enough in storytelling! We're almost finished with the last of Nick Riordan's Percy Jackson books, and I'm curious to see where we'll be going after this. Tex definitely likes to have adventure in his stories, so I'll probably continue in my hunt to see what sort of series are out there that would appeal. My particular challenge is to find something that might be interesting to both the boys, as our books usually end up being bedtime material and it's easier if they're both engaged. The big hits over the last year were the Star Wars junior novelizations, the Narnia series (though we stalled out at Voyage of the Dawn Treader), and How to Train Your Dragon. I may try to talk them into The Tale of Desperaux next, since it's funny and adventurous (AND has illustrations, a big draw for Noodle). Or we may finish The Odyssey if they want to continue the Greek theme, or D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. So many options.

Tex and I also had a fraction discussion today. This kid loves fractions. He was telling me how much of his banana he had eaten, and he started with an estimate of 3/4, then said "no, it was a little more than 3/4, I think. Like two and a half thirds." I came back with "oh, ok, so that would be 5/6". He thought about that for a minute and said "thank you for making that a simpler fraction, but do you know what? Even though what you said makes more sense, it's actually much easier to say 'two and a half thirds' than it is to say five sixths." I couldn't even argue with that. The word "sixths" is a pain in the tokhes and should be avoided at all costs.