Making learning fun

One day last week Hurricanehead made an announcement:

"Today is the day I yearn to weed!"

It had nothing to do with yard work. He'd decided he was going to read--and he did. I printed some Montessori alphabet cards and phonetic words. Hurricanehead enjoyed sounding out the words and building them himself with the alphabet letters. Then he got his Red-Letter Alphabet Book and started building words from its pages.

When he got to the page with 'crab,' Hurricanehead carefully selected the c, r, and a cards. As he looked for the b, his gaze fell on the p and he looked up at me with a glint in his eye. I bit my tongue as he moved the p into place and proudly read his creation.

"Crap!"

He spent the next few minutes switching out the p and b while chanting, "crab, crap, crab, crap!"

Reading had been appealing enough, but the ability to create potty words and read them aloud without censure was almost more heaven than the boy could handle. What better motivation to continue learning?

"Give him a picture of a ship," my friend Theresa suggested. Courtney admitted that her daughter's favorite early spelling game was to put an s in front of 'not.' The possibilities for a customized curriculum are endless, and much more interesting than Dick and Jane or even Bob.

How do you keep learning interesting for yourself and/or your kids? Crab crap? Dangerous experiments in the garage or kitchen? Dick and Jane? Please share.