Ivan's Sketchbook

Ivan's reading is coming alone really well. My goal for him is to have him reading pretty independently by the end of the school year. He's making awesome progress towards that goal. 

Ivan has been using a lot of his free time to draw. He's got his drawings taped up all over the walls in his bedroom, and piles more drawing everywhere else. So a little while ago, I asked him if he'd like a sketchbook. He didn't know what one was, and I showed him a few of Aaron's old ones. He thought they were pretty cool, and decided that yes, he would like one. We made a bargain. I told him that if he would read several Little Bear book out loud to me, that when he was finished I'd get him a sketchbook. 

Little Bear is a level 1 reader, and the next step in Ivan's reading, but he's been resistant to trying them because they have more words on a page than he's used to. Even though he can read most of the words, the length is what was deterring him. But the sketchbook motivated him to give it a go. 

It took us a few weeks to get through the books. I let Ivan take the lead, and let me know when he wanted to read to me. And I only made him read as long as he wanted to, when he said stop, we stopped. He worked hard and I was proud of him. 

Ivan has been totally into his sketchbook, it makes me happy. He spends a long time thinking about what he wants to draw, and then takes his time to do his best to draw it. 

Aaron brought the kids to come and watch my volleyball game the other night (I'm playing on a womens city league with some ladies from my stake), and after the game Ivan brought his sketchbook over to show me this drawing:

Remember how Ivan got rats for Christmas? Well, one of the rats is a biter. Rats aren't supposed to be biters. We looked up a couple of things to try to make Hemi stop biting, but they didn't seem to be working. One morning Ollie stuck his finger in the cage, and Hemi ran over and bit him. It sliced his finger open and bled really bad. We decided that Hemi needed to go live in the corn field. We talked to Ivan about it, and he understood and agreed, and he and Aaron went to let Hemi go. A day or so later, Ivan found me when I was by myself and said, "Mom can I talk to you about one of the pictures in my sketchbook?" And I said sure. He opened his book to this picture:

Then he said, "Mom, do you think Hemi is happy living in the corn field?" He had tears in his eyes. I told him that I thought Hemi was much happier in the corn field. Ivan smiled and said, "I'll always remember Hemi by this picture and think of him as happy." My adorable little tender-hearted boy. I love him so much. I'm glad he enjoys drawing. It's fun to watch his interests diverge away from Lincoln's a little bit, and to see him starting to become his own person.