Reading Party!

Okay, so what if it's 2 weeks later... we had our Reading Party.  I guess you could say it was our version of Kindergarten graduation.  Scott completed his reading program- we used The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, by Jessie Wise.  I really liked how thorough/complete it is and I appreciated the fact that the whole thing is scripted, even though I didn't always use the script.  It took Scott about 2 years to go through the whole thing, with breaks as needed.  He is definitely a reader now!

So what does a reading party look like?  First people have to show up... in our case we planned it for a day when Grandma and Grandpa would be here from Maryland and then Aunt Jesse and Temperance were also available to come.  Then it's all about food, Scott's a boy you know.  We did pizza and I let them make their own this time.  No pictures of that, because, well there's 4 of them and I kind of had to be helping them the whole time.  Daniel didn't quite get it though, he just wanted to eat the toppings.

While the pizzas were cooking, Scott read us a story.  He chose one of our library books that we had out that week- Pilot Pups.  It's a good one for little kids as there are relatively few words and the story line is cute.  I think he noticed the "few" words and decided it was easy... not exactly, some of those words were on the challenging side, but he did a great job sounding things out and read us the whole book, by himself.

Grandpa and Blaise listening.

Aunt Jesse and Temperance listening, or maybe sleeping?

Well... not everyone was listening, Daniel had other things in mind.

After he read to us, we gave him his new Bible and a certificate of Achievement for his hard work learning to read.  The Bible:  We had decided, actually a long time ago, that when the boys learn to read we would get them their first real Bible (meaning an adult translation of the entire text of the Bible, rather than a story Bible, reader's version, or mini-testament.)  With the changing of the NIV last year, I wondered if that was still the "best" option out there and asked around a little bit.  My main thought being either get the NIV 1984 (which was pre-liberal-revision, sorry if that's too strong for anyone) or the ESV.  I have heard such good things about the ESV, but never read it myself, so I couldn't really compare yet.  I asked a few friends- okay basically a huge percentage of everyone I know, thank you Facebook, now go away and stop sucking up all my time!  If you responded to my inquiries there, thank you for the input :)  In the end we decided on the NIV 1984, because... first of all, most of the Scripture I have memorized is from that version and therefore most of the Scripture Scott already has memorized is also from that version, and then because I decided to get myself an ESV Bible, so next time I'll be able to compare for myself.  So far, I think I still prefer the NIV.  I would really love to learn the original languages and read it in it's true wording someday.  For now, I'll continue to remind the boys- all of them- that the Bible wasn't written in English and so we have lots of different translations to consider.  Thankfully, God speaks through them all.  

Back to our party.  By that time, our pizza was ready.  We enjoyed it and then got to the good stuff.  ICE CREAM.  Ice cream beats out any other dessert in Scott's book.  When asked what he wanted for his special dessert that was it, hands down.  I DO have pictures of that... 

Amazingly neat about it, because they don't want to lose any.

Very confused about the whole cone thing and he wouldn't touch it til we gave him a spoon.  It's definitely a unique technique.

Focused... until he bit the bottom and it started dripping in his lap. 

Certainly happy about it in the end!

 After that it was baths and bedtime... here are a few other recent pictures as bonus.  

Scott reading the bedtime Bible story one night.

Michael built a tower with all the blocks.  It was very neatly stacked.  His brothers decided they wanted to be in his picture too.  

Baby Temperance... she's just too cute not to put a picture of her here.  We are enjoying every moment we get with her.

Since his party, Scott has really become much more comfortable reading.  Instead of reading lessons, he just reads for a little while everyday to me and lots to his brothers, when he doesn't think I notice.  He's been reading "The Dragons of Blueland" a sequel to My Father's Dragon and today he read 3 Chapters by himself, while I got dinner ready.  I think we're on a roll now.