Dreambox

I signed Bohdin up for a free trial of a math game online. He really liked it at first and played about an hour the first day and again the second day. Then it became harder and he started losing interest. Today is the last day and I don't think he'll care. I was surprised at how much he accomplished in the few hours that he played. He skipped/completed kindergarten and was about 1/3 of the way through 1st grade. Almost all of that was skipping again. They do a diagnostic and if you do well enough it just skips to something harder. I wasn't impressed with the game. It focused too much on efficiency of time and moves for my liking. I think if somebody is learning something there should be room for error and correcting mistakes. For instance several of the games involved an abacus. They would flash a card and Bohdin would have to recreate it, count up the beads, click on the correct number and then hit done. One time the mouse hovered over a bead and clicked it back to the right. He clicked it back into position but they made him redo the whole thing again because he used too many moves. I really don't like that. Even if our mouse wasn't so jumpy I think one should be able to manipulate it as much as necessary before hitting done. Bohdin also didn't learn the objective they thought he did. They said he mastered addition or subtraction involving the number 10. That wasn't true. He had the correct answer but he never made the connection they thought. He also didn't learn to count by fives as they thought. He just counted by ones. I wouldn't pay for that program but it was fun to try. He did gain some confidence in counting. Bohdin wasn't always a careful counter and he's more careful now about not skipping things or counting them twice. That's the only thing I noticed him learning.

Bohdin asked to learn how to spell several months ago. I finally found the program I want to use for spelling but it involves writing also. Bohdin is completely not ready for writing yet. He said he would wait on the spelling so we'll wait and reassess in 6 months or so when he's almost 5. He's a boy so I'm not surprised.
In the meantime we'll just keep reading a lot. Bohdin is very into science right now. He's learning about the planets and physics. He is also really interested in anatomy. We checked out I think a million books from the library yesterday. He picked out subjects ranging from Oregon to Native Americans to bathtub physics experiments.

Bohdin came down with a cold last Thursday night. He didn't seem that sick. A little coughing in the morning and a slight runny nose through the day. Nyla became sick a few days later and now Buddy is sick as well. Buddy was hit the worst. I still feel fine. Nyla is snotty when she lays down.

Bohdin asked me to tell him a story yesterday about Jerry getting frozen. I didn't want to and told him to wait until daddy got home. Buddy is the one around him who usually makes up stories. So Bohdin says "But you have such a nice voice. You must tell it." This was a better way to go about it than the usual whining. Later we told stories. I told him I would tell him one if he would tell me one. Here is one of his stories as best as I can remember. I should have written it down right away.

Once upon a time Bohdin was looking for three friends. Tyken lived in the first house. N- lived in the second house and Nyla lived in the third house. Bohdin went to the first house and saw Tyken. They became friends. Then he went to the next house and made friends with N-. Then they went to the other house and made friends with Nyla. The end.

He told me another story about a diver and treasure also but I can't remember it. Next time I'll have to write down the stories.

When we went to pick up may car last week we were able to squeeze the carseats into Buddy's truck. His truck is much wider than my car so Bohdin couldn't reach Nyla anymore. He didn't like that. When I told him later that we would be getting a new car soon, I asked him how close he wanted to be to Nyla. At first his hands were about six inches apart but throughout the day he kept changing his mind and his hands got closer together. The last time he came running up to us and said I want my seat to be this close to Nyla. His hands were touching. I don't think Nyla feels the same way.