Bragging On Tazzie

I bought the beginner level Bob books last night.

This am, he read THREE of them to me!

Woooo hooooo Tazzie!!!

The really funny thing is, Tazzie has been reading here and there for over a year. He won't, however, do it on command He does stuff like know the difference between Ceasar and ranch dressing because he can read the word 'cheese' on the ranch...but wouldn't do it if asked to.

I *think* I figured out why last night. I had said something about him being able to read his own books, and he was unhappy and said he didn't want to. The light finally dawned. He thought if he read, I wouldn't read him bedtime stories anymore, that he'd have to do it all on his own. I reassured him that Mommy would always read him bedtime stories, and when he was reading, we could take turns if he wanted, and move on to bigger and better stories like his big sister, and that he could read whenever he wanted to during the day.

And suddenly today, he's reading the Bob books. Awesome!
For those that don't know what Bob books are, look here.

Is That An EYEBALL On Your Table?!

Yes. Yes it was. And an ear too, if you must know.

One of the top things I love about homeschooling (other than shopping for the curriculum, and I'll have an article later about that, because lawsy, that is FUN!) is the ability to bridge the gap between the Diva and the Littles (aka Tazzie and The Princess). In this particular case, Wolf had taken Princess out for a little Daddy and Daughter time, leaving me with Diva and Tazzie. What to do, what to do. Haul out an eye ball and ear of course.

Yes, we're talking models, folks. This is 'The Non Stepford Style' not 'The Frankenstein Style', remember?

So, here we have the Eyeball in The Box.

Fancy, no?


If you're able to read the somewhat blurry, small print, you'll notice that the eyeball is made out of 'durable soft foam!'. Soft, yup, and as for durable...well...it survived round #1 with Tazzie. I'll need more rounds to really assess the 'durable' claim though.

So here goes, hands on exploration with the eyeball...

Tazzie gets his half (oh, did I mention its in halves? Yeah, I'll get back to that in a second, cause its really cool the way they did it...)and examines it, then attempts to use it as a spinning top. *sigh*

Of course, Diva is much more studious. At least when there's a camera around. *snort*


Homeschooling gives you the opportunity to say things that would otherwise never be uttered, such as, "You didn't wash your hands! There are dirty finger prints on my white eyeball!" and "Quit squeezing the eyeball! These have to last til The Princess is done high school!" amongst others.

The cool thing about the eyeball model, (ha! Thought I forgot, didn't you? Neener neener, neener!) is that on one half of the model, its perfectly labeled. On the other half, its labeled with only letters, so if you wanted to test your child, you could hand them the letter only half and have them write out the name to each corresponding letter. Clever no? Diva wasn't so enthused.

Moving on to the ear.

Obviously, these things are a wee bit larger than life. Van Goh, where art thou? Yes, I find that funny. Nobody around here gets my humour.

Tazzie thought that if he only yelled loud enough, something would happen. I know that feeling. Its called Motherhood.

Diva, checking out the ear. She made some pretty neat observations, including that the cochlea looked like a snail shell.

All in all, a great success, even if there was some fighting over the ear.