Starting "School"

This week was my first ever planned out "school" week for Henry. By school I mean purposeful play directed at acquiring certain skills.

I am loosely basing my plans on the ABC Jesus loves me curriculum for three year olds, with some significant differences. First of all there is no writing, because Henry is too little :) We read a Bible story (just a few verses long) and sing a song and say a memory verse every day. They also suggest books on the site, but since I didn't see the first book at the library and I'm trying to limit my book binging we just watched a reading of it on youtube. By the way, did you realize that every children's book is on youtube? Seriously, it's great. I wish I had known about it this winter when I kept losing my voice.

I also printed out some of the linked coloring pages of the creation story. At this point Henry will color over the objects on a page, but is more interested in looking at the crayons and talking about the colors. He knows red, yellow, brown, green, orange, pink, black, and white. If I ask where "the blue one is" he will point to the correct object but won't spontaneously say blue. The same with my favorite color, purple. Learning his colors happened almost as soon as I started making a habit of pointing them out to him.

I try to get him to use the triangle crayons because he is much more likely to hold these correctly, like a pencil. I don't even try to put the crayon in his hand the right way yet when he colors.

We also tried lacing beads, which he did very contentedly, although he liked playing with the wood beads by themselves more than the lacing. We played with a Mr. Potato Head and reviewed body parts, and with some Melissa and Doug animal magnets, talking about the sounds they make.

We watched Talking Words Factory whenever he begged for a "dee-dee-vee", I don't think he gets the linking of the letters yet, but he loves the video anyway.

Now that it's not so cold out we've been taking very long walks on the boardwalk together, which has helped us both so much. When I can get a little exercise I don't feel so couped up and crazy and Henry is happier when he gets to run. When we go on these walks Henry walks and runs nearly a mile of the way home. He sleeps and eats better and is so cheerful and loving when he's had a chance to work off some of his wiggles. In fact, this week my independent little guy has hugged me and his dad more than ever!

His pronunciation is getting better and he has started to say two word sentences. He still refused to eat anything that's not milk or a cracker or pretzel, but I did get him to eat some veggie baby food when his cousin was over. I'll have to remember that for the future, when Mercy gets something, Henry wants it too!