Tangible progress... (and a funny picture)...

A fun picture in honor of the Wordless Wednesday theme, although this is hardly a wordless post! Don't my kids look awesome with stick-on mustaches?

And now on to the progress part... yesterday, we had a breakthrough! Let me back up a bit first though... Cricket decided that this week she does NOT want to do any phonics on the computer. Instead, she wants to sit with me and work on Explode the Code, The Reading Lesson, and various readers. I am trying to limit screen time, so this made me quite happy! Besides, I love working directly with my kids.

Anyhow, so we were sitting at the dining table. She had just completed 4 pages in Explode the Code, while Bug worked on spelling (plurals). Cricket took a spelling test, aced it, and then the breakthrough moment.. she turned to me and asked "Mommy, can I write a story now?" Of course I let her (we even skipped her math pages), and she wrote a story on her own. It is quite short, and the words are all spelled phonetically (like "hoc" for "hawk"), but she did it on her own! (with the exception of the word "chicks" which she asked me to spell out for her)

I am so, so proud of her right now! This was a big first for us, and gives me a lot of hope.