Learning through games

Circle C

Last night we went for a bike ride. When we arrived home Creed was anxious to get inside and started to pound on the door as I was pointing out a new bloom on the rose bush to Daddy. Bending down I said "Creed, you need to take time to smell the roses," sniffing it, and he said "OK" and walked over to participate. I love how literal he is at times.

Creed was as eager as ever this morning starting his own curriculum of dots with the letters a, b, c, d, y and z. After he finished one he would hold it up in triumph declaring, "I did it. I did it. See?!" The one that clearly stood out was the letter c, which he did in circles. I said, "Creed, this is the most festive one yet. I love it!" After he completed the d, he held it up once again squealing, "I did it," held it to his face hugging it and then said, "Awe, it's my favorite."

Fine motor skills game

Fine motor skills game

We played three games today working on our fine motor skills while watching Your Baby Can Read. As I watched him playing with the pipe cleaners and pom pons, I felt like a mad scientist observing my subject. Creed, taking it a step further decided to separate the colors and try counting

them out. We're still working on counting. When he's in a hurry he will count some twice or run to the tail end of 10 before he's even got there. 

sensory game

When the part in the program asked, "Are you a baby?" Creed answered, "I not a baby!"

"Are you waving?" … "Not I not waving."

It's quite humorous to listen and watch him at times. On that note, later in the day his Daddy asked him if he could put the tooth picks in the shaker he enthusiastically said, "yea," unscrewing the lid and dumping them all in! The ability to think outside the box is definitely a good quality to posess. 

When we took a break I noticed Creed was playing with some refrigerator clips. He started clipping them in the back of his hair and stated matter-of-factly, "I look like you mama." I am always amazing though not surprised to see him doing things and especially repeating things we both say. 

itty bitty pencil was the ticket

One game that was a lot of fun for him was the sensory game of finding alphabet beads in a bowl of grain, even I loved running it all through my fingers. In hindsight next time, we will use a bin. 

We both tried using chop sticks and child-size easy-grip tweezers to separate a bunch of beans, but the child ones were too stiff and required more than two fingers. The chop sticks were too small, the beans slipping out. Creed tried to put them in the tweezers and chopsticks, but they both ended up flinging across the room. 

learning to cut

Next we took a break and watched "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom," one of our favorite Scholastic Videos, a book by Bill Martin Jr.

ABC My First Learning Groovers

Today was able to trace the patterns with his finger and work on holding the pencil while scribbling circles. The smaller pencil worked, by the way - first experiment closed. I was able to find a book of the alphabet that shows the child how to trace the letter from beginning to end with their finger. I was hoping to find it on some kind of texture like sandpaper, but "ABC My First Learning Groovers," by Award Publications, seems sufficient.

This week we are working on day three of creation. Creed practiced his cutting skills on the ends of toilet paper rolls, in preparation for our flower craft, while I read about the third day of creation, separation of land and sea and plants. Instead of using one color to make flower prints he used them all. Instead of making prints he pounded intently. So we've got some color on our grass-colored construction paper.