Two Wheelin'!

He left a boy...

And came back a little bigger..

Tyson wanted to share about how much fun he is having riding his two wheeler bike. At first the challenge was learning how to pedal as he already had the balance down.  He started off on training wheels and while at the park overcame the frustration of having to balance and pedal at the same time. Once he figured out how to make his legs turn he took off..going over the bases in the baseball diamond gleefully.  They were pretty big jumps for his first few minutes of no training wheels!  He loved it.  We try to go out as often as we can. He rides for a long time, up hill, down hills, and he's even gotten really good at avoiding the unpredictable riding of his little sister!

First Book!!

For awhile now Tyson has been really good at letter sounds. And I have been wondering how to teach him to read. He can easily sound out short words and he knows to read left to right, top to bottom, but I wasn't sure how to make the jump to actually reading sentences. There is a great book The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading that I have been trying to go through with him, but he was somewhat bored with it as he already knew the letter sounds..so we were thinking he needed a challenge.

The problem is that all of the books we have, especially the easy reader ones, he basically has memorized, so that wouldn't help him learn reading.

We found BOB books at B&N and decided to give them a try. I wasn't sure how he'd like them since he'd become disinterested in the reading guide, as though it were too easy.  As we pulled the first book out, I told him he would have to read it, that he actually COULD read it, and that we were not going to read ANY of the books to him.

He is the only one allowed to read the words in them.

So, with the first book in hand he excitedly started to read the first words...

We were so surprised! He was doing it!!!!!! It was kinda slow, but not too bad. And the first time through I didn't ask him to repeat the word faster to actually hear what it was, but I just let him sound them all out. He finished the book ALL BY HIMSELF!!! Sometimes he would repeat a word until he heard it, but I didn't ask him to do it. The second time through it he repeated the words and "listened" to them. Then he read the second and third book.

We went back to the first book, the third time through it, and he had definitely picked up speed. He read it to Jason and I tried to get it on video.. this video isn't very good, but it IS 'in the moment'..

After we taped this he wanted to call and share his exciting news with his Grandma's. They listened to him read the entire (it's short) book over the phone. (Thanks moms!) He was very proud that he could read the whole thing all by himself. We are too! :O)

Tyson, we are really proud of you and thrilled to see how well you work toward learning new things! It will be fun to see what you learn and discover as you read more and more! :O)

And the boys went camping...

I went fishing with my daddy and I caught some fish and then I went to the camping spot. We ate the fish and after that we ate s'mores and put out the fire. I got hot water and poured it on the fire to put it out. And..then it got dark and we went to sleep. And that's my story.

-Tyson age 4

Tyson the Firefighter

Today we went to the Hawthorne area of Portland. There's a bookstore there I needed to go to, so after soccer/basketball class we headed into town. Of course we needed to have a snack so we pulled into Station 9 to see if we could have snack with Jason and the crew. As we were pulling in, they were pulling out, with Jason driving. I knew where they were headed as I saw their huge Comm Van just down the street staged in a parking lot. We decided to eat snack in the car then walked around the corner to the bookstore. It was really a nice day today, about 50 degrees and sunny!! It was nice for January anyway.

We went to the bookstore, looked around and as we were heading back we decided to walk down to where they were doing their practice/set up stuff. We got there just as they were finishing, so we got a chance to talk to them for a few minutes. We all needed to head back to the fire station and as they had to take the fire engine as well as the van back there were extra seats in the fire engine. Jason asked Tyson if he wanted to ride back to the station in the fire engine!!!!

At first Tyson was kinda shy...he wanted to know if Kaiya and I were going too..but we couldn't since we had the stroller. So if he wanted to go, he would have to go by himself, with daddy driving the fire engine!

He looked a little shy...was a little red from embarrassment...and then said Yes!

Jason lifted him up to the back seat and buckled him in. He had such a big grin on his face!!

Once the door was closed you could barely see his face smiling in the window..

This is what he had to say about it:

M: So, what did you think of getting to ride in the fire engine?
T: "It was fun! Um...I could see some lights on top of the fire engine. Kaiya didn't get to ride in the fire engine."

He rode down the block to the station. I'm sure he didn't stop smiling the entire time he was in the seat. He was still smiling when he was lifted out.

He smiles when you ask him about. Now he wants to be a firefighter.

I wish I had had my camera on me.

"Yook at Me!!"

We hear this phrase constantly throughout the day.

Often it sounds like "Yook at me dada. Mama yook at me!"

And then we have the opportunity to see Tyson doing something like this:

"I'm The Man"

(yes, he is wearing a plastic bowl on his head while helping Jason move the fridge)

"I'm a present wrapped under the tree. But don't open me yet."

I blame Word World

Word World is probably one of Tyson and Kaiya's favorite TV shows. They watch it together and dance, shriek and laugh. Tyson likes the catchy little songs about letter sounds, and honestly, I like singing them to him. Both kids love to read, and we read a lot. I guess I don't know how much other families read, but, every time our kids bring us a book, we read it to them. The other night I read Tyson two books, which took about 20 min and in that time Kaiya brought Jason almost every book from her room to read, one by one, and he kept reading each one she brought out as long as Tyson and I were reading. It was pretty fun...did I mention we love to read? :O)

Tyson wants to learn how to read. He WANTS to learn how to read. I don't know how to teach him how to read. He's 3 years old. I don't need him to learn how to read. I like to read to him. But he wants to..so he's learning how to read.

It's probably because of Word World.

This afternoon I was, um, reading with Kaiya, and Tyson came in with a letter d and a letter b. (He has a magnetic set of letters and numbers they play with on the fridge). He wanted to clarify which one was which. So we sang the song from Word World, ' a line then circle is the letter b, a circle then line is the letter d'. He smiled and walked back into the kitchen. A few minutes later he called for me to come see what he did. I walked into the kitchen to look at the fridge.

"Look! Buh-ed. It says bed!"

"What?!?! What are you doing?! You spelled that? Are you trying to spell and learn how to read?!"

Which, being a defiant 3 year old, makes him want to spell all the more...

I'm so proud of him. :O)

Besides, I haven't even read the book yet about how to teach him how to read...

Reading

Just a quick note...
1. He is reading just the numbers. He doesn't have them memorized.
2. "Blast-off" is our own insertion. He's not reading it because it's not actually in the book.

Enjoy!