Goals and Reading!

Phil and I are doing our best to raise our boys in a way that is somewhat counter-cultural. I'm sure this is no big surprise after having read so much about us. I think this weekend was the first time I really saw clearly how we are different.
Joshua has been wanting this one game for his DS. We found it for $28 used. It wasn't that long ago that the boys had just saved up their allowance and raided their piggy banks to buy themselves a new game for the Wii so I wasn't real hip on the idea of putting out that much more for this game that only one of them can really play. I told him to save up his allowance again for it but since he only gets $3 a week that would make for a very long wait for a 6 year old. Since I don't want him spending every single penny in his piggy bank he started practically begging to put up a lemonade stand. After talking with Phil about it we decided to go ahead and let him.

We bought lemons and squeezed until we couldn't feel our wrists anymore. We found a recipe and mixed it all up. It was delicious! Sunday after church we set it up. It was sunny and super hot! I hung out with a book in the shade beside the house while Josh sat out by the street... by choice! He wanted to be where the action was! Even Jeremiah helped. They waved at just about every car that went by!

Enough people stopped and bought Josh's lemonade that he was able to go out and buy his game today. We did have to drop the price which brought in more customers but hurt his profit. Phil and I decided that the amount of work he put into this was worth putting in some of the supplies to make it happen for him.

Today I let him play for a little bit. Jeremiah watched over his shoulder. I had no idea how much they'd enjoy this together. Josh is so proud of himself. His first real goal accomplished. He is quite the little businessman!

Jeremiah is making his own improvements as well! The other day he looked up on the counter at the pharmacy and read to me the word, "on." So today we brought out one of our favorite learning tools we got for Joshua, the Bob books.

Today he read his first book! We sounded out the words he couldn't figure out and he did way better than I expected! Looks like both our boys can say they started reading before they were 4 years old!
On a side note, the Bob books are great for very beginning readers! The stories are a little funny if you point that out and the words start out with 3 letters each so they're easy to sound out. We only bought the first set with Joshua because once he started reading he didn't really need much more guidance. He pushed forward on his own and quickly outgrew them. They make several levels so we'll have to see how it goes with Jeremiah.