He Wrote His Name

For the last 9 months (can you believe it's already September?!), I've been focusing on my oldest child's education.  Mainly because he officially starts kindergarten next week.  It may seem that we're starting homeschooling "late" since all of the other kindergartners around here started classes last Monday, but in reality, we've been doing kindergarten since January.  So technically, Boy Wonder starts first grade in a week!  It kind of blows my mind.

That said, I've been really focused on educating Boy Wonder during these last 9 months.  This doesn't mean that I've totally ignored my middle child, but I certainly haven't been pushing Tornado Man to do any schoolwork.  I mean, he just turned 4!

I guess that's why I was so surprised when I picked Tornado Man up from his Sunday School class last week.  When his teacher (who also happens to be Grandma) sent him out the classroom door, she also handed me a stack of papers/craft projects that he had done during his 3 hours at church.  To my shock, his name was very clearly written in crayon on his pages.  Not only that, but it was written in a child's very neat handwriting!  That afternoon, Grandma called to confirm that Tornado Man had indeed written and spelled his name on his own! Talk about having my mind really blown!  I didn't even know that he knew what the letters in his name were.  Plus, his name has a traditional, rather than phonetic spelling--meaning that he didn't just guess his name.  And to make matters worse--or more shocking--I have not worked with Tornado Man on his name or his letters!

As it turns out, while I've been slaving away teaching phonics to my oldest child, Tornado Man has been learning Phonics as well.  But he has been learning by watching LeapFrog videos, like The Letter Factory (thanks for recommending this Angela).  And he's been practicing his letters by using the tracing game on his Leap Pad.  What I was just using as something to fill the time while his brother did schoolwork was actually teaching him something.  Apparently, educational videos and toys do work.

Of course, the caveat to my last statement should be that educational videos and toys work on the right child.  Tornado Man is an independent learner.  He likes to be hands-on and to "discover" new concepts on his own rather than being taught by someone else.  As a result, we've bought him lots of educational toys and videos.  And now we're learning that they are working.  He has already demonstrated to me that he knows his letters, their sounds, and how to write most of them.  It's kind of amazing that he has mastered concepts that take most kindergartners months to learn, and he's done it ON HIS OWN. 

I can already tell that homeschooling Tornado Man is going to be a whole new adventure!