Lessons at the Bug Box

It was Andy's last day of camp, and Joey has no ESY on Fridays, so I took advantage of opportunity knocking and took him for some 1:1 at the Bug Box. I printed out some worksheets from Enchanted Learning to help focus the visit- one on insects, and a book about spiders. We showed up with worksheets, crayons, and four bucks. We were ready for action.

The lady who runs the place took one look at my worksheets, one look at Joey, and said, "no charge." If you're doing homework, you get in free. How cool is that? She was expecting a school group, so we got right to business to squeeze in as much focus as I could before the group showed up, or Joey wore out.

I have a very difficult time getting Joey to focus. Half of that is that Joey has difficulty focusing, because after all, I'm mom, and home isn't school, and all that. Getting him to sit and do an activity in a sea of distraction and home is nearly impossible. However, he took focusing while at the Bug Box right in stride. We used the first sheets as a sort of scavenger hunt, so that he had to read the sheet, look for the bug, then her could write the word. Then we moved to the next bug. That had him wandering around looking for bugs, small objects in a vast visual field- he did very well, all things considered. We did get through the whole little workbook.

Then we sat ourselves in front of real, live tarantulas and talked about spiders. We read the little mini-book, looked at the spiders, talked about the spiders, and then he had to answer questions about the book and the spiders. He had to know what spinnerets were, what an exoskeleton was, and the difference between an arachnid and an insect. That last was a little sketchy for him, but we got it. He answered the questions. He finished the little worksheet.

Holy crap, I got the boy to do two assignments, focus for a whole frickin' hour, and answer questions!!! Where am I, and what has happened to my child??? I am deliriously happy. What a difference a year makes!