Reader++

C has been working his way through the BOB books. He's not fluent, but he's made tremendous headway. Tonight, without supervision or any help sounding things out, he wrote a letter to the leprechaun that visited at school. 

"I love Luce
becus heg
av megld
sind Corin
thacyou."

For those that don't read 5 year old:
I love Lucky
because he gave me gold.
Signed, Corin
Thank you.


Little guy rocks my world. He's finally getting the hang of this reading and writing thing.

Love and writing

Corin has been writing and writing. He wrote a book about a rainbow shrinking and growing. Illustrated with lots of rainbows. I need to capture the text translation before he forgets.

He also has started a wish list for his birthday. "Blac angre brd bacpac", etc.

It's really cool to see this explosion taking place. To watch him work through sounds and how letters play together to make words.

Gamma Ree gave them heart sticky notes for Valentine's Day. He wrote everyone's name on a sticky along with the word "love" and stuck it to our respective bedroom doors. My door says "Mom Dab love".

We love you, too, kid.


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It'll cost you...

I frequently make Corin "pay" for things in kisses.  He asks for favors and they are granted for the price of a kiss or hug.

He took a nap this afternoon.  We knew this meant bedtime would be rough. Sure enough, he's been awake and sneaking down to see what we are up to downstairs. I went up to ask him to stay in bed. He agreed.

He asked for a glass of water. I suggested he go get one. Giggling he says, "But you just told me to stay in bed." I acknowledged my mistake, told him I would get him one. He says, "And will it cost a kiss?" I had to giggle as I agreed. I got my kiss. He got his water.

When he was done, I took the glass and told him goodnight. He asked me to put the glass away and come back. When I went back, I told him I was going downstairs. He caught my shirt. "It will cost you a hug and kiss to get downstairs." Laughing, I gave him a hug and kiss. With his arms still around my neck, he said it would cost another hug and kiss. This went on for 5 or 6 hugs and kisses until both of us were laughing.

I finally got away, but I must confess, I wasn't trying that hard at that point. I love that kid and his sense of humor.

Shoes

Today, he tied his shoes for school with absolutely no assistance from me. Fortunately, he thinks his Chucks are harder and said I could still help him with those. *whew* Guess that keeps me from being totally obsolete.

This has been a long road for him. He has a hard time working through something that he doesn't "get" the first time through. That made the many week process of shoe tying a very long and frustrating experience. He's got it now, though.


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Legos

Corin and Legos is like Ryanne with books. Both are far beyond their age levels, ability wise.

Corin has had a few sets for 4 & 5 year olds. He typically finishes them under an hour. He's currently working on one that's 7+ and it's taken him 1.5 hours with probably another 30 minutes to go and has been a totally independent process. The 9+ set he worked on took him a couple of days, but he also made some substantial errors. (Fixed by mom and dad, but they did keep him from progressing and required some maneuvering by us to fix.)

I haven't been able to figure out if it's sheer number of pieces that makes it take longer or if it's actual building difficulty. Pieces definitely makes for a longer process, but there's some correlation by Lego to piece counts and age range as well and I don't totally understand that.

Books are easy. Raw page limits are the answer for now. This Lego thing is going to take some work.