reading and math

I've been noticing in the past two months that Sebastian has been reading words here and there. Today he realized that he could read the words "play all" on a dvd. He then told me that he had been reading a book with Meredith (I had seen them on the couch at the cottage together - very sweet!). He said that once Meredith told him what some words said, he was able to remember them and that he could recognize the word go, whether written with an uppercase or lowercase g. He seemed excited by this so I asked him if he would like some readers like Meredith's and he quickly answered yes. I'm eager to see where this leads for him. He has been showing more and more signs of wanting to learn to read but never in such an obvious way.

He, Meredith and Nell were also really into doing chores to raise money for a dinghy. This lead to counting their money and tallying it up. Sebastian had spent much time with a math story book on this a few months ago which had lead to him learning to count by 5's, 10's and 100's. We had looked at the way you can add columns of numbers but he had never been interested in actually trying any on paper. He seemed interested in watching as I showed them how I was adding up the numbers and they both helped me. I've really been feeling that he might be ready to learn some more math concepts and more difficult operations. He has been practising adding into two digit numbers by himself. It can get confusing for him using his fingers so I think it might be time to pull out the cuisenaire rods. I got them late last fall but he was not interested at the time so I put them away for a bit. He really has seemed to be inspired by the nicer weather these last few weeks. He's moving away from technology (craving lots of video games and computer time) and remembering all of the many other things he loves to do.