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larryhammerTBD is four years old. Finally. The party was yesterday, in a park with 5 child guests (and a toddler sibling). We survived.
Achievements unlocked this last month: mazes (usually traced with finger, pending the fine motor control for a crayon/pencil), the concept of trying to color inside the lines, math video games (basic addition and subtraction, with answers worked out on fingers or counting objects), Snap and Go Fish (open-handed), opening the freezer, using a cooler to climb onto the kitchen counter without help, "Nana-nana-boo-boo!"
We think that last was learned at preschool.
The story lines of pretend play are getting more complex, as are the premises of requested stories. Either people or toys play the roles in pretend, where by "toys" I mean cars and trucks, the go-to pastime hereabouts. There is more interest than ever in establishing what is real and what is only in stories.
Current superheroes of interest are the Guardians of the Galaxy with a side order of X-Men and Spiderman. Bedtime story requests have included a LOT of pregnancies and births lately -- something's being worked through there. TBD still really wants to learn to read, but reviewing letters has less urgency ATM -- possibly because of a surge in maths. The only capital letters that give trouble are V (looks like Y) and E (like F or G), but the only lowercases really known are those similar to its capital.
Syntactic swapping has extended to semantic forms: "Learn me something!" and similar confusion over the direction of action. (And then there's "I won you.") "Doodle!" (sometimes "Deedle!") is the current all-purpose nonsense response, especially when not wanting to answer a question. Attempts to reintroduce Totea haven't really taken (we parents kinda miss her).
Plonking on piano is getting more exploratory: playing with rhythms and dynamics (loud/soft) as well as harmonics. There's been more variety, the past couple weeks, in songs sung at random moments -- and, hmmm, less invented lyrics. Dunno what to make of that.
Don't know what to make of this, either: TBD correctly, without anyone naming it, identified as poetry my habitual reading while supervising bedtime. When I'm reading poems about bugs, there is enough interest in it that reading one aloud has by popular demand become part of the routine, after stories. (That there are no poems about rolly-pollies was a disappointment.) For this, I'm willing to allow the delaying tactic.
And other talking, talking:
Janni: "I'm still learning how to do this."
TBD: "I'm teaching you."
"You are."
"We all teach each other."
"1! 2! 3! 4! 1! Blastoff!"
(eventually counting down all the numbers caught on)
"I can't say Urias very well."
(Uranus)
"You be a people and I be a T-Rex." (pause) "T-Rex can eat people?"
"I be a cheetah and you be an antelope."
Me: "No, this car is going night-night."
TBD: (scornful) "It can't go to sleep. It's a toy."
"Tell me about the robots in space and in rockets and on planets and who crashed and whose batteries have died."
(still a much-repeated request)
"$friend says I know everything. But I don't know everything!"
(playing quietly with balloons on couch)
(softly to self) "5 balloons. If I take away 1 (throws one to floor) then I have 1 2 3 4. If I take away 1 more (throws one to floor) then I have 1 2 3. If I take away 1 more (throws one to floor) then I have 1 2. If I take away 1 more (throws one to floor) then I have 1." (turns to me) (triumphantly) "1!" (throws it at me)
"Maybe you can be the little kid and I can be the blender" (screeches at top of lungs)
Needless to say, I covered my ears and said,"Eek!" As one does. Onward!
---L.
Subject quote from "Passing Afternoon," Iron & Wine.
Achievements unlocked this last month: mazes (usually traced with finger, pending the fine motor control for a crayon/pencil), the concept of trying to color inside the lines, math video games (basic addition and subtraction, with answers worked out on fingers or counting objects), Snap and Go Fish (open-handed), opening the freezer, using a cooler to climb onto the kitchen counter without help, "Nana-nana-boo-boo!"
We think that last was learned at preschool.
The story lines of pretend play are getting more complex, as are the premises of requested stories. Either people or toys play the roles in pretend, where by "toys" I mean cars and trucks, the go-to pastime hereabouts. There is more interest than ever in establishing what is real and what is only in stories.
Current superheroes of interest are the Guardians of the Galaxy with a side order of X-Men and Spiderman. Bedtime story requests have included a LOT of pregnancies and births lately -- something's being worked through there. TBD still really wants to learn to read, but reviewing letters has less urgency ATM -- possibly because of a surge in maths. The only capital letters that give trouble are V (looks like Y) and E (like F or G), but the only lowercases really known are those similar to its capital.
Syntactic swapping has extended to semantic forms: "Learn me something!" and similar confusion over the direction of action. (And then there's "I won you.") "Doodle!" (sometimes "Deedle!") is the current all-purpose nonsense response, especially when not wanting to answer a question. Attempts to reintroduce Totea haven't really taken (we parents kinda miss her).
Plonking on piano is getting more exploratory: playing with rhythms and dynamics (loud/soft) as well as harmonics. There's been more variety, the past couple weeks, in songs sung at random moments -- and, hmmm, less invented lyrics. Dunno what to make of that.
Don't know what to make of this, either: TBD correctly, without anyone naming it, identified as poetry my habitual reading while supervising bedtime. When I'm reading poems about bugs, there is enough interest in it that reading one aloud has by popular demand become part of the routine, after stories. (That there are no poems about rolly-pollies was a disappointment.) For this, I'm willing to allow the delaying tactic.
And other talking, talking:
Janni: "I'm still learning how to do this."
TBD: "I'm teaching you."
"You are."
"We all teach each other."
"1! 2! 3! 4! 1! Blastoff!"
(eventually counting down all the numbers caught on)
"I can't say Urias very well."
(Uranus)
"You be a people and I be a T-Rex." (pause) "T-Rex can eat people?"
"I be a cheetah and you be an antelope."
Me: "No, this car is going night-night."
TBD: (scornful) "It can't go to sleep. It's a toy."
"Tell me about the robots in space and in rockets and on planets and who crashed and whose batteries have died."
(still a much-repeated request)
"$friend says I know everything. But I don't know everything!"
(playing quietly with balloons on couch)
(softly to self) "5 balloons. If I take away 1 (throws one to floor) then I have 1 2 3 4. If I take away 1 more (throws one to floor) then I have 1 2 3. If I take away 1 more (throws one to floor) then I have 1 2. If I take away 1 more (throws one to floor) then I have 1." (turns to me) (triumphantly) "1!" (throws it at me)
"Maybe you can be the little kid and I can be the blender" (screeches at top of lungs)
Needless to say, I covered my ears and said,"Eek!" As one does. Onward!
---L.
Subject quote from "Passing Afternoon," Iron & Wine.
no subject
Date: 30 April 2017 11:08 pm (UTC)Good! (And heh, this is still how I feel after child-focused events....)
Learn me something
Oh, I dunno, TBD is only channeling Old and Middle English. (German has kept the doublet: lernen = to learn, lehren = to teach. I don't know comprehensively, but as late as mid-C20 US English regional usage retains "larn [pronominal object]" from the English version of the latter. Learn/"larn" is parallel to sit/set, lie/lay, hang/hang, fly/flee, cleave/cleave....)
no subject
Date: 1 May 2017 03:05 pm (UTC)We survived.
Given we had declines/cancellations from TBD's three besties, I was a little worried.
no subject
Date: 1 May 2017 04:49 am (UTC)I don't remember much about being four, but I do remember that I liked the age. I am sure TBD will/is, too.
no subject
Date: 1 May 2017 03:07 pm (UTC)(We have already been asked why they didn't get more toys ... )
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Date: 1 May 2017 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 1 May 2017 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 May 2017 04:24 am (UTC)(FWIW, Reason was slightly earlier than her classmates to handle simple add/substract queries, with or without finger-aid; TBD is a good half-year earlier still. It's neat to see variation! There's always a tradeoff on earliness, seems like--the letter shapes are a likely one.)
no subject
Date: 2 May 2017 04:58 am (UTC)I've been doing the multiplication by restatement thing, including pointing out groupings in counting books and two hands of five fingers make ten. The last time I did that, TBD was clearly trying to digest that but not quite making the connection.
The past couple days, we've been working on leveling up in several different directions.