Read This

My kindergartener, Finwe, now has homework. Don't freak. It's simple and rarely consumes more than five or ten minutes.

The first night he had to talk to his family about the weather. Easy.

Tuesday he had to use a ruler to measure things around the house and decide if they were smaller or larger than the ruler. Easy and fun for all of us. We kept bringing him different things to measure. How about Mom's foot? Ooooo, Larien suggested, measure Ida Bad Dog's tail.

Tonight, he had to practice reading the words the, is, and no. No problem. He did, however have to read a book, but we got so distracted due to the addition of the Fabulous T to our family (a whole 'nother story!) that we didn't get to that.

To remedy this, I wrote some words on the chalk board squares on his wall. The first three were the homework words. Easy. (When I say easy, this isn't to imply that he's a wiz at reading. He proved to be the most difficult to keep on task while I taught him to read. It is mixing with other kids his age that read which really spurred him forward. Easy is relative and doesn't covey my excitement that he does read and wants to read.)

I wrote mask, because he was wearing the Zorro mask we bought him some time ago. He hasn't a clue who Zorro is. He read the word.

I wrote shirt to see if he could figure out the dipthong. He got it.

I scribbled buzz, because we as a society don't put enough emphasis on words that are fun to read. Buzz tickles the lips and is an onomatopoeia. Cool. He read it and giggled.

Then, I drew four letters with precision. F    A     R      T

"Mom! You wrote a potty word!" Whatever he said next was covered in so much laughter that it could have been anything.

My husband joined in the mirth but added, "Don't tell your teacher what your mother had you read."

He's only being half-serious.