Sylvan day 1

Thomas had his first visit to Sylvan for a class on Thursday.  He was very excited about it and I am so glad.  The ladies that run this particular center are really nice and they truly love what they are doing.   Thomas will go for one hour twice a week to get up to date on his math.   They started him out with learning cardinal and ordinal numbers.  This is something he should have gotten in the 2nd grade.  I do declare, I do not remember this from Jack or Thomas.   The kids earn tokens that they can use in the "Sylvan store," this is a little place at the center that has little items the kids spend their tokens.  They have toys, games, cards, t-shirts, and water bottles ect. . .  The night Thomas took all of the tests he earned 18 tokens and he spent them all that night.   They give tokens for different things.  They can earn them for having a good attitude, working really hard, doing well on a test, and if they have a Sylvan shirt and wear in to class they get 5 tokens.  Thomas earned 18 tokens again on Thursday.  He decided he would bank those and see what happens the next session.  They can bank their tokens and save for something big.  They get a check register to help them keep up with their tokens that they bank.  Thomas felt like a big kid when he got to fill out his bank register for his tokens.
Here is another tidbit.  They have a free online website called Book Adventure.  You can go online and search books for your child's reading level, they read the book and then take a test.  They earn points not associated with the Sylvan Learning center but online.  Have not looked real close at this yet.  Jack has logged in on it and has already earned 700 pts.  He was taking tests on the Percy Jackson series of books.  This is like the old AR reading tests the kids used to take in school.  Jack loved that and of course they have done away with that at school.  I think that was a big mistake but that is another post.  This little reading testing thing is good to get the kids ready to take the EOG and do the reading portion of it.  Thomas has not done it yet but, like I said Jack loved it.  It has over 70,000 books that you can test on of varying reading abilities.  I love anything that gets my kids excited about reading and learning.  My favorite quote, "Reading is fundamental"  http://www.bookadventure.com/
Moms stand tall and keep encouraging those kidos!!