A Big Breakthrough

Lachlan had an unexpected breakthrough yesterday.  I love it when moments like this just seem to come out of nowhere.  Peter and I were reading and he was sounding out words.  Lachlan was listening in and sounded out the word "but".  He then went to the table, grabbed a paper and pencil and wrote it down by just sounding it out.  He cut it out and brought it to me. 

He asked me what it said and when I read it to be the word he meant it to be, he was quite excited.  I of course was thrilled and made sure he knew it.  I asked him how he knew how to write that words.  He explained to me the process and went back to the table to write some more.

He started at the bottom of the paper and wrote But I can, then later added jump in the mud.  He also added wet and tried to write friends (but that's a tough one).

He was still excited about this new skill and flipped the paper over to write another sentence. He started his sentence at the bottom again and wrote "I love you even wen u r mad".

This all happened in the evening before bed which is when we have been doing a lot of our reading, since learning can happen anytime, not just during school hours.  I was able to lay down with Lachlan to help him fall asleep and he dreamed up the most exciting of plans.  He asked if he could write a book the next day. 

At first I said, no we have to do reading and writing and math and we have worksheets to do.  HAHA, tricked you.  Like I would ever say no to that.  All the worksheets and checklists go out the window when your child is excited about writing a book.  I mean seriously!  I am so thankful I am the teacher and my class size is small. That way we can take full advantage of these breakthroughs and the excitement they have towards any given project.

We actually were so excited about the idea and got up to put our book together.  He left it blank until the morning but we laid in bed thinking of a good title.  He decided on Lachlan's Big Adventure.

He completed his first page after Farm School today.  That is a picture of him and the other kids looking for the ribbons on the trees.  Today at farm school we searched through the forest for ribbons and then had to identify what kind of tree it was by looking at pictures of their leaves and other characteristics.  I think his illustration is pretty accurate.

I then taught him how to date his page and explained to him what a journal is.  He thought using this book as a journal sounded like a good idea.