Tortoise and the Hare

I know "they" say you shouldn't compare your children.  For a long time I interpreted that to mean that I shouldn't notice differences between my children.  For a person like me, you might as well say, "don't breathe."

My kids are all very different.  That's a good thing!  It can also make it challenging to navigate parenting and teaching and interacting.  I now give myself full license to notice these differences.  I just try not to assign values ("better" or "worse") to these differences.

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Aubree and Bryce's learning styles are markedly divergent.  For a long time now, I've referred to them as my "tortoise and my hare."

Aubree is the tortoise.  No, I obviously don't mean that she's a slow learner.  She's a steady learner.  Every day she learns something new.  She's predictable.  If I were to plot her learning curve, it would be a consistent upward slope.

Bryce is my hare.  He learns in dramatic sprints, followed by long plateaus.  If I were to plot his learning curve, it would look more like steps.

Thankfully, this isn't a race, and they both ultimately end up learning the same important skills.

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Since Aubree came first, I became used to her learning style.  I'm still adapting to Bryce's style. Admittedly, it makes planning his school much more complicated.

For example, last year we did a "letter of the week" curriculum, focusing only on upper-case letters.  By the time Spring rolled around and we were almost to the end of the alphabet, our conversations would go something like this:

Me - pointing to an "M": "Bryce, what letter is that?"

Bryce: "F?"

Me - pointing to a "J": "What letter is that?"

Bryce - shrugging his shoulders: "F?"

"No big deal", I thought, "We've got another year before kindergarten, we'll just go over the letters again until they sink in."

Then, one morning (literally) he woke up, pointed the the M on the wall and said, "M says mmmmm."  Then he pointed to the "V" and said, "V says vvvvv."

We hadn't learned "V" yet.

Huh?!?  One day he didn't know them, the next they were mastered.

Fast forward to the last couple months.  I sat down and sketched out a rough outline of what his school would look like for this year.  Mostly the plan (reading-wise) was to work on recognizing lower case letters, reviewing letter sounds, and to start working on recognizing the beginning sounds of words.

We did letter crafts for all the upper-case letters, and are in the process of doing letter crafts for our lower-case letters now.  Bonus - we use them to decorate our play room.

Through Aubree's PPP school, we have access to an online, game-based reading program called Reading Eggs.  The site has two levels, one geared for kids just learning to read and one for kids who have mastered basic reading skills.  Both levels are accessible with the same subscription, so since Aubree is obviously using the higher level, Bryce is able to do the lessons on the younger level.

I'll admit, playing the "games" with Bryce at first was a lesson in patience!  The concepts seemed to go right over his head and I doubted whether we could continue for long.  But, he loved being on the computer and begged every day do play Reading Eggs, so we persevered.

Then one day, "Click!, Zoom!"  Bryce's brain sprints ahead!

Not only did he suddenly understand the concept of how to identify the first sound in each word, he could also identify the middle and ending sounds!  "Rrrr-aaaaa-t," he told me, "that says 'rat'!"

The other day he was playing with the fridge magnets and I asked, "Bryce, can you make the word 'mop'?"  Ten seconds later he's pulled the three letters together correctly and is beaming with accomplishment.

Scratch the original school year plans.

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So... the updated plans are to keep on keeping on with Reading Eggs.  It's working really well, is free for us, and he loves it.  I know well enough now to expect more plateaus and sprints, so we'll take the reading progress as it comes.  In January, depending on where he's at, we might start "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons."

We'll finish reviewing the lower-case letters, but at an accelerated rate, mostly because he likes doing the craft (and we need to use the crafts to finish decorating the playroom!).  Along with the lower-case letters, I've had him work on an alphabet journal.  In the journal, each letter has a page.  He traces the letter, then draws pictures of words that start with that letter.  Bryce can definitely use work on his fine motor skills (writing and drawing mostly, his scissor skills are excellent).  When he is drawing for fun, he's still inclined to "scribble," so I was pleasantly surprised to find when we did his first page (letter a) that he can, in fact, draw when he wants to.  The letter pages are a good way to encourage focused, intentional attempts at drawing.

I didn't do a very good job last year at keeping up with Before Five in a Row, so this year that's what we're using as our themes for SCOOP (our homeschool Coop).  So far it's worked out really well.  Bryce and Thane are really enjoying doing language arts activities, dramatic play, art, science, math, and centers each week based on a book they love with other kids, and I'm really enjoying not having to come up with all the activities on my own.

Other things I hope to do/focus on this school year with Bryce: math activities (working on addition and subtraction concepts), number recognition (11+), handwriting/letter forming, calendar awareness, and crafts (the goal is to do at least one "big" craft a week).

I'm also thinking he's ready to do an outside the home activity, but we're having a hard time deciding on what to do.  There seem to be a lot more options for preschool age girls (like recreational dance classes).  Possibly soccer, but he's not very interested in doing that plus we'd have to wait till spring.  Maybe karate?  Swimming might be another good option.  Anyone have any additional ideas?  After Christmas is when I might be ready to add something like that to our schedule.