A Great Way To Celebrate...

We finished Orin's Hooked-On-Phonics Kindergarten curriculum today. We're so proud of him. Not because he can read on a K level (that's not important to us), but because he set his mind on doing something and stuck to it. Every day he was the one who asked, "When are we going to do my Hooked-On-Phonics?" I'm already praying that this is the attitude he will have when it comes to homework. ;-) (yeah, I know I'm totally fooling myself) For the past month he's been asking if we can do the next edition when we finish this one so I ordered the 1st grade curriculum a few days ago. I kept thinking that as we continued through the K material that it would eventually become over his head and we would have to stop until he got a little older but he actually seemed to learn things more quickly by the end. But we'll see about the 1st grade stuff. I'm still sort of skeptical. We're fine to keep going as long as he wants to. We usually only do it for about 15-20/min per day once Micaiah goes down for his nap. The only thing I don't really like is that we used to do different workbooks (thinking skills, math, etc...) and we haven't been doing as much of that because of the HOP. I'll have to figure out a better way to balance the reading while keeping up with the other things. I also think we've been doing less crafts which isn't really fair for Micaiah. Got to find a balance...

I really think this was Orin's motivation....just putting up the stickers.
Orin putting the last star on his chart. He was so excited.
After he read his final book today we told him we'd celebrate at Chick-Fil-A. What made it even better was that all this food cost only $5. We've been going to those free movies at the United Artist on Tuesdays this summer (well, we've been 4 or 5 times). The Chick-Fil-A Cow is always there handing out coupons. I seriously have a huge stack of them. Free nuggets, chicken sandwiches, fries, and ice cream. And multiple coupons for each. The kids could probably pass on the food (the don't eat french fries and aren't crazy about chicken nuggets) but they love the ice cream and play area. It was a fun evening. And although I love the food, my OCD comes out a little when it comes to the play area and germs. I shutter to think what nastiness in in there. We always have baths as soon as we get home.