Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, by L. Frank Baum (a review by Calvin)

Yes we are clearly making our way through the entire catalogue of Oz books. Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz is the fourth book in the sequence and so far each subsequent book is at least as good as the last.  I've sung praises for the series often enough already that I think no more need be said, so I'll just move right into Calvin's review.

Legos

I've heard that all parents are faced at one time or another with a very important decision. The decision between Legos and Playmobil. My understanding is that everyone has to plant themselves firmly in one camp or the other by the time their first born is five. For the past couple of years we've given Playmobil a try, and I find myself really liking the pieces—they're well made and almost realistic—but I also find them constraining in a way that Legos would never be. So we're putting one foot firmly in each camp.

And that's not really what this post is about. Calvin got his first Lego set, an electric truck, for St. Nicholas Day this year and it took him less than half an hour to assemble it by himself. I found great joy in watching him decipher the picture directions, making errors here and there then fixing them, asking for help only a handful of times when he couldn't get a piece to snap down. It was a great moment, and that's what this post is about.

The Bob Books

Reading is something we've done an extra lot of as of late. Of course we always read a lot, but the difference is that now about half of that reading is being done by Calvin himself. At this point he is now reading a variety of books we have in the house, mostly the easy readers of yesteryear, like Hop on Pop, by Dr. Suess, or Snow, by P.D. Eastman, but before he started working his way through the longer books we started with books intended to teach reading and phonics. It was on a trip to the library a couple of weeks ago that he first asked to bring home a set of phonics books and I spent some times perusing the collection there, only to be disappointed by the number of books more interested in selling a branded character (like Clifford, Bob the Builder, or Thomas) than teaching the skill of reading, but there was one collection that was entirely devoid of that commercial culture so we brought it home. Turns out we were pretty happy with that selection. The Bob Books we had (and clearly we didn't try all of them) were a good workout for the new reader and even had somewhat interesting stories. I'm sure I was slightly drugged by the joy of watching my son discover reading, but these books were actually enjoyable for both Calvin and for me. Win win.

Ozma of Oz, by L. Frank Baum (our reviews)

We're working our way through the Oz books, and loving every chapter along the way. The books aren't perfect—there are some dark moments and sometimes a taste of violence—but in general they're a fun foray into a fantasty world that at one time captured the minds and hearts of many children. Reading these books glimpses not only that fantasy world, which is fun for Calvin, but also the world that was the early 1900s, and that's fun for me. I can't help but assess the gulf of cultural difference between then and now as we're reading. I am finding myself very fond of these books, and I believe Calvin agrees. His review of Ozma of Oz, by L. Frank Baum:

Reading

I have long been opposed to teaching reading at young ages. I think I have previously expounded the virtues of waiting to teach that skill, and my goal was to have Calvin reading around the age of six. I should know by now, however, that my son has his own ideas about learning (I still remember carefully researching all the important theories on potty training only to have him wake up one day completely potty trained all by himself). So I guess I can't say I'm surprised that at the library last week Calvin asked to check out a collection of phonics books, then at home proceeded to work his way through them methodically and voraciously, with little help from me. In the short span of a weekend he mastered all the words in the first set of Bob phonics books we brought home and is proudly asking for more.  Homeschooling is nothing if not exciting, being full of misdirections, u-turns, and somtimes complete transportations. I may have intended to save reading for another couple of years, but Calvin had other ideas.