Exciting, and Yet Very Humbling

Brogie has been doing preschool activities this year in school- cutting, pasting, coloring, tracing, that sort of thing. At the same time, I've been trying to get him ready for learning to read. He knows a couple of letters by sight, but that's about it.

Several weeks ago, a mom on the Well-Trained Mind message boards mentioned a video by LeapFrog that her kids loved. She'd said it introduced the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make. That sounded like a fun way to introduce the idea of letters making sounds, so I put the movie in our netflix queue.

Last week it arrived, and Brogan and Colson did really enjoy watching it. So much so that one week later Brogan knows nearly all of his letters and the sounds they make. Colson knows a few of them.

One week.

On one hand, I'm terribly excited and proud of Brogan for making the connection. But on the other hand, I felt very humbled by the fact that I'd been replaced by a DVD. For months we've been reading books, and for many weeks we've been working on letters. I was sure it would take many more weeks of patience, planning, and practice for Brogan to master the letter sounds. But after only 7 days of intermittent video-watching, he's got 'em.

One week. Videos.

Maybe I should look closer at purchasing BJU HomeSat or A Beka Academy on DVD for the boys next year?