Monday, November 24, 2008

The kids and the things they do ....

So, I am biased. It's true. I have unbelievable kids. My son is smart, I don't take credit. He watches, listens and chooses. He is so full of the insight and the interest in the world and his place in the world, I wish I had growing up. Saturday, he said to me, (mind you, after only one "lesson" on each topic) "Mom, the President is Obama." I said, "That's right!" My husband looked at me in aww over the bit of information my son processed and repeated. I then asked, "Do you know who the President of our Church is?" He took a moment, walked away; I was afraid he was going to ignore me, and said, "Thomas S. ... Mon .. son?!" OMIG. What a memory. I only once sat down and talked to him about who the new President of the U.S. was after the elections, showed him his picture and left it at that. Shortly after President Gordon B. Hinckley of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints died, again, I sat down and showed him, only once, who our new President of the Church was. What a memory!!! He never ceases to amaze me.

Pretty classic amazements of his are other random things he has done in the past, that unfortunately, with my issues of keeping a journal, I have not recorded. Here is as good a place as any ... Dylan started reading at 2.5 yo. Pretty, young? I didn't think so until all the other mom's I knew from various places began exclaiming what an anomally. Makes me feel uncomfortable, like I did something wrong. So, I learned to delight in his accomplishments and roll with them. I didn't "teach" him, per se, but I didn't hold him back. I saw the window of thirst for knowledge open and there was no way I was going to let it close! We started working with the coolest federally funded website I've ever known and wish more moms knew about it, called www.starfall.com. It was his "computer game." He was only allowed 10 minutes per day with me to "play." As he began loving it and understanding more and more of it and learning to control the computer mouse, he got to play more and more on it, up to an hour a day. Soon, he was sounding things out. Of course, when there was an opportunity, I would encourage his learning and challenge him, but for the most part, he was really interested and excited to learn something new. Soon, he sounded out the only word I'd ever heard him sound out - he, himself put his learning to the test and sounded out the word "FRIEND." I didn't know what to do!!! It was then, I decided to put him into a preschool. Out of all the preschools in our area, A-M I called, Challenger preschool was the most affordable and one of the only ones that focused on phonics. One month later he was enrolled and two months later, he was READING! WHOA.

Since then, he can't stop. He will read anything he can. He will read things to himself and catch me in an "adult moment." He will read to me, luckily, ask me to still read to him and read to his new baby sister. How cool, right? Well, what do you do when he starts reading your COLLEGE level text books?? No joke! I was hunkering down reading my text book for my master's degree program and he hopped on my back and started reading it out loud to me, "Treatment for Bipolar I Disorder." OMIG. Where does it stop? He continued on and read some words that I was sure he wasn't going to be able to pronounce. Yet, he still surprised me and read them, paying attention to grammar rules that he hadn't even learned formally, yet and phonetically should have stumped him. What a cool cat he is! Dad and I like to see if we can challenge him, but also, we like to include him now that he can read. He likes to read the scriptures by himself, ingredients to foods, all sorts of other random things.

Because of this advanced level he is at, and because of the fight we went through to get Challenger to challenge him, (he started getting bored and acting out since he was so much further ahead of his class ...) we decided to homeschool. I don't know for how long we will homeschool, but for now, it works. He stays home with Mom, we save on money for a preschool he doesn't need, we are challenged by finding opportunities to socialize, and at the same time, enjoy the extra time we get together and the fun we have discovering things together. It works very well, for now.

And because my long-winded breath has written so much, I will save the rest of our homeschool adventure for another day.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

hey I am glade that you started a blog. I love blogging!!
shonnee