Fw: my 4 yr old knows how to print!
Karen McLaughlin
[I wrote this last night but Yahoo didn't let it through so here it goes for the second time!]
I haven't posted in ages, but I really wanted to share this with everyone.
My dh Joe and I were just finishing up our lunch today when Nathan (4 1/2 yrs) brought a paper over to Joe and said "look dad, I started my name, can you show me the rest of the letters?". I looked over at the page and he had written an "N" and an "O" , and was wanting to know what to do next. Now, to my knowledge, he has never printed letters before at all, or asked anyone to show him how. For that matter, I had never really picked up on him showing much interest in writing at all. So I was, needless to say, rather shocked when I saw what he had done. I think the reason he wrote NO rather than NA is because his brother's name is Noah and Noah often spells his name out loud. When Joe wrote down the other letters so Nathan could see what they looked like, he picked up his marker (a skinny "grown up" one, not one of those big fat things that are supposed to be for kids <g>) and wrote them all out, fairly legibly (although not in the right order, lol). Cool!!! Interestingly enough, his older brother Noah has shown no interest in learning to write at all yet (he's 6 1/2). I figure someday when he's ready he'll probably do the same thing as Nathan, just pick up a pen and write something. They both certainly do a lot of fine motor stuff with all their lego building.
Today was a pretty cool day all round, I guess. While I was getting ready to go to yoga class this morning, I walked in to the boys' room to find Nathan hunched over a set of Lego instructions, with all the pieces lined up in front of him, studying intently to figure out how to do the next step. I just love watching him do stuff like that, it amazes me that a 4 yr old can concentrate that well - he has followed some fairly involved sets of instructions all by himself. I went off to yoga, the boys stayed home with their dad, and one of their friends came over to play for the morning (the friend is usually in school but is off for March break this week). When I came home, they were all playing with playdough. While Joe and I ate lunch (after friend got picked up), the boys watched a video for a while, then Nathan came down and started doing some colouring and cutting up some designs (he makes these up out of his head to create paper x-wing fighters, people, etc) -he has been doing a lot of this type of thing for the past few weeks. Then came the printing as already described.
After lunch, I went to dig out a book of science experiments, and found a bunch of great books on the same shelf (bottom shelf, half obstructed, and hadn't looked back there in awhile). I decided to take a lot of the books that were there and make room for them on another more accessible bookcase. I took some of the books to the boys, and they sat and looked through them for a while. The boys were watching a video (Zooboomafoo I think) when Nathan asked if he could put the Empire Strikes Back on for a couple of minutes so he could see the probes at the beginning of the movie because he wanted to try and build one out of Lego and he couldn't quite remember what they looked like. Noah told me about the Bearded Dragons he had seen on one of his videos "having a shower" (it was being sprayed with a spray bottle) and told me he wanted to give his Bearded Dragon a shower once we get one (we've been saving up for one for quite a while, and almost have enough to buy one now, but we've been learning lots about them in the past few months).Nathan started building Lego, Noah went back to his video and I started making some bread. Nathan came to see what I was doing and asked me about the yeast so we talked about that a bit and how it makes the bread rise. He helped me measure and stir on and off. Once I had the bread ready to rise I did a simple experiment with the boys (demonstrating how air stops water filling a glass when you push it upside down onto the bottom of the sink fast). Nathan asked to go outside. We are in the midst of a huge snowstorm which started around 11 AM and is to continue overnight. We had already gotten quite a lot of snow so I went out with Nathan and we shovelled together and made a huge pile of snow for the boys to play on. After a while, Nathan went inside to ask his dad for a drink and came out with a glass of chocolate soymilk. He went around towards the side of the house, then came back and asked for more, then went back to the side of the house. I didn't think he had drank it all that fast, so I went to see what he was doing. He was mixing the soymilk with snow to make his own ice cream! He offered me some, it was actually pretty good.
I went back in the house after a while to start making some soup (Joe had gotten the bread baking). Once the soup was simmering, I took the boys up to our bed for a snuggle and read them some of the books I had found when I rearranged the bookcase. They were quite delighted with "How Many Bugs in a Box" and "More Bugs in a Box" which they had forgotten about, we hadn't read them for so long. They spent quite a while looking at them while I finished dinner.
Well, it's 11 pm now and the boys are watching Lilo and Stitch and want a cuddle before they go to sleep, so I guess that's as far as I'm going to get, but all round a very pleasant, peaceful day.
Karen
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I haven't posted in ages, but I really wanted to share this with everyone.
My dh Joe and I were just finishing up our lunch today when Nathan (4 1/2 yrs) brought a paper over to Joe and said "look dad, I started my name, can you show me the rest of the letters?". I looked over at the page and he had written an "N" and an "O" , and was wanting to know what to do next. Now, to my knowledge, he has never printed letters before at all, or asked anyone to show him how. For that matter, I had never really picked up on him showing much interest in writing at all. So I was, needless to say, rather shocked when I saw what he had done. I think the reason he wrote NO rather than NA is because his brother's name is Noah and Noah often spells his name out loud. When Joe wrote down the other letters so Nathan could see what they looked like, he picked up his marker (a skinny "grown up" one, not one of those big fat things that are supposed to be for kids <g>) and wrote them all out, fairly legibly (although not in the right order, lol). Cool!!! Interestingly enough, his older brother Noah has shown no interest in learning to write at all yet (he's 6 1/2). I figure someday when he's ready he'll probably do the same thing as Nathan, just pick up a pen and write something. They both certainly do a lot of fine motor stuff with all their lego building.
Today was a pretty cool day all round, I guess. While I was getting ready to go to yoga class this morning, I walked in to the boys' room to find Nathan hunched over a set of Lego instructions, with all the pieces lined up in front of him, studying intently to figure out how to do the next step. I just love watching him do stuff like that, it amazes me that a 4 yr old can concentrate that well - he has followed some fairly involved sets of instructions all by himself. I went off to yoga, the boys stayed home with their dad, and one of their friends came over to play for the morning (the friend is usually in school but is off for March break this week). When I came home, they were all playing with playdough. While Joe and I ate lunch (after friend got picked up), the boys watched a video for a while, then Nathan came down and started doing some colouring and cutting up some designs (he makes these up out of his head to create paper x-wing fighters, people, etc) -he has been doing a lot of this type of thing for the past few weeks. Then came the printing as already described.
After lunch, I went to dig out a book of science experiments, and found a bunch of great books on the same shelf (bottom shelf, half obstructed, and hadn't looked back there in awhile). I decided to take a lot of the books that were there and make room for them on another more accessible bookcase. I took some of the books to the boys, and they sat and looked through them for a while. The boys were watching a video (Zooboomafoo I think) when Nathan asked if he could put the Empire Strikes Back on for a couple of minutes so he could see the probes at the beginning of the movie because he wanted to try and build one out of Lego and he couldn't quite remember what they looked like. Noah told me about the Bearded Dragons he had seen on one of his videos "having a shower" (it was being sprayed with a spray bottle) and told me he wanted to give his Bearded Dragon a shower once we get one (we've been saving up for one for quite a while, and almost have enough to buy one now, but we've been learning lots about them in the past few months).Nathan started building Lego, Noah went back to his video and I started making some bread. Nathan came to see what I was doing and asked me about the yeast so we talked about that a bit and how it makes the bread rise. He helped me measure and stir on and off. Once I had the bread ready to rise I did a simple experiment with the boys (demonstrating how air stops water filling a glass when you push it upside down onto the bottom of the sink fast). Nathan asked to go outside. We are in the midst of a huge snowstorm which started around 11 AM and is to continue overnight. We had already gotten quite a lot of snow so I went out with Nathan and we shovelled together and made a huge pile of snow for the boys to play on. After a while, Nathan went inside to ask his dad for a drink and came out with a glass of chocolate soymilk. He went around towards the side of the house, then came back and asked for more, then went back to the side of the house. I didn't think he had drank it all that fast, so I went to see what he was doing. He was mixing the soymilk with snow to make his own ice cream! He offered me some, it was actually pretty good.
I went back in the house after a while to start making some soup (Joe had gotten the bread baking). Once the soup was simmering, I took the boys up to our bed for a snuggle and read them some of the books I had found when I rearranged the bookcase. They were quite delighted with "How Many Bugs in a Box" and "More Bugs in a Box" which they had forgotten about, we hadn't read them for so long. They spent quite a while looking at them while I finished dinner.
Well, it's 11 pm now and the boys are watching Lilo and Stitch and want a cuddle before they go to sleep, so I guess that's as far as I'm going to get, but all round a very pleasant, peaceful day.
Karen
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
TreeGoddess
We recently bought the "How Many Bugs in a Box?" computer game and my
kids (3 and almost 5) really like it. I'll have to look for the books
-- I didn't even know there were books of this title. LOL
-Tracy-
kids (3 and almost 5) really like it. I'll have to look for the books
-- I didn't even know there were books of this title. LOL
-Tracy-
On Mar 17, 2004, at 9:50 PM, Karen McLaughlin wrote:
> Once the soup was simmering, I took the boys up to our bed for a
> snuggle and read them some of the books I had found when I rearranged
> the bookcase. They were quite delighted with "How Many Bugs in a Box"
> and "More Bugs in a Box" which they had forgotten about, we hadn't
> read them for so long. They spent quite a while looking at them while
> I finished dinner.