Book It!

Today we started Book It! Not the real book it- because Pizza Hut is too cool for school anymore, but our own version of it.

Sophie is fantastic in math, very curious in science, AMAZING in art, and soaks up anything I can give her about history/people. But reading she struggles. Which I struggle with because reading was the ONLY subject I loved as a child. I could read all day and all night. I loved using my imagination living in the pioneer days with Felicity from American Girl series, I had every single Sweet Valley Book and read each one more than once, and deciding which way the fate of my character in Goosebumps books was just awesome. So when my beautiful Sophie says she hates reading I hear my heart break....

I know the problem is that if she cant get something right- right away- she wants to give up and move on. So when she gets stuck on words she gets frustrated. My brain started going 100 ways on how to make books fun. I thought of book it, books that went to movies, and reading to Sullivan (our dog). OH and of course going to the library so she can pick out her own choice of books to read.

Today after 3 days of re reading she read to me, "Barbie Horse Show Champ" without any problems. So she got her first sticker on her book it button I made for the fridge. After she has 5 stickers we will take her to Pizza Hut where she gets her own personal pizza, with her choice of toppings, and she doesn't have to share with the rest of us, and gets to pay her bill (she loves figuring out the tip, and how much money to give at the register).

I was very happy to see her smile as she put on her first sticker- and then ran to find another book to read so that she can read it to me later and see if she is ready for another sticker.

Ryan and I also spent the morning working on their ipads and uploading fun apps for them. This is definitely more Ry's area then mine but he was patient with me picking out which one for which girl. We found a great one for Sophie about the national parks, presidents, and learning to tell them. And for Lola we found more ABC, tracing, and puzzles. Both girls now have Spanish apps, coin counting, and Pandora kids.

Getting creative with playdough

Water Painting

I know people get really snooty about kids having technology and being so young. I was very hesitant last year when Sophie got hers for Kindergarten. But I have seen how much fun the girls have with them- learning- but not even realizing how much they are learning. They both love to take videos and photos, they have a piano app that is helping them play along on our real piano. So yes you can be grumpy that your generation didn't have cell phones and ipads and bitch bitch bitch... But life is to short. They aren't wasting there time away doing pointless games instead of playing outside- we are using this as part of their education and it doesn't get used all the time. Balance. Learning, laughing, living homeschooling has so much to offer my children and I'm blessed that we are able to.