Microblog: $41 Phonics Lesson

My mom was in two weeks ago (today) and we hit up a local church rummage sale on a dreary and wet Friday morning together. We got there about 3 minutes before it opened and it was a madhouse with a line of around 100 people. I rummaged with Claire riding piggyback in the Ergo and Benjamin was charming my mom into buying everything he touched. It worked.

She bought him a slew of videos and toys and even a lava lamp. Grandmas.

One of the videos was a 35-minute Leap Frog Letter Factory Phonics video. I never thought he'd watch it because it didn't have Disney plastered all over it. Surprisingly, he requests it almost daily and has for the last 14 days. He's probably seen it 10 times.

A few days ago, he started pointing to some letters and telling me their sounds as we were reading a book together. That's the "tuh" (t). So, I decided to go through the entire alphabet. He knows every single letter sound. Totally floored.

The catchy little jingle probably makes it easier to learn, but he was able to say them all without the song. "The t says tuh, the t says tuh, every letter makes a sound, the t says tuh."

Would've been the biggest steal ever, at $1, and it should've been, if I hadn't lost $40 cash somewhere in the madhouse of that rummage sale that morning. Let's hope it was picked up by one of the church volunteers and put into their fundraising pot.

$41 phonics video for the win. Who knew.

(It turns out it can be watched here for free, too. The rest of you might have the luck of a $0 phonics lesson without leaving your home!)