What's New?

We explored a new way of learning colours and shapes today. Sophie enjoyed the task much more than I had expected. In fact, I think she loved how I showed "disapproval" when she did not manage to match the pieces to the boxes by their colours and shapes... so much so that she deliberately did it to elicit my response.

Sophie was actually able to match the orange circle to the right box. Occasionally, she also got the purple square, blue triangle and red hexagon right. I am not sure if she can recognise the shapes or the colours, but it was sure fun to watch her learn as she play.

Besides Sophie's new "toy", I also took out her alphabet foam puzzles and placed it on the floor in the hallway. Knowing Sophie, she would probably be able to learn the alphabet better if she could step and run on them! Currently, she is responding fairly well to the traditional alphabet song I play on the computer. She randomly utters letters without any visual cues, so I guess she has little idea what she is saying so far. At least she enjoys saying the names of each letter and knows each one has a name...

The first time when I put up nursery rhymes on the wall for Sophie with blu tack, they were ripped out almost immediately. So, I kept them aside until I bought some 3M self-adhesive board. They are securely on my wall in the hallway now. She cannot take out the nursery rhymes even though she has tried many times already (still trying). Her favourite is Peter Piper because Papa finds it amusing and keeps trying to say it right. So, Sophie finds it funny and keeps pointing to it and saying, "peck peck peck".

Other new features include Sophie's new pocket book display that I have been using to entice her to read. I bought some readers from Edventure Books and they gave me pocket book displays. Interestingly, I am not displaying their readers... not yet anyway. I am still waiting for Sophie to be slightly older before starting on the readers which deals with reading mainly. For now, Sophie's readers from Scholastic and InnovativeKids sit comfortably in the pockets. I also included her Baby Bug and Wild Animal Baby magazines and some other "dunno-put-where" kind of books in the pockets.

Since I was already trying to do some home improvement, I decided to tidy up her Daily Chart. Now, I do not have to dig into its pockets everyday for the right labels. And Sophie can easily see all the labels at one glance. She also enjoys tearing out the labels and pasting them onto the chart.

Before Sophie's bedtime, she picked up her beloved deflated balloon and put it in my face. She then blew at it, signalling me to inflate it for her again. I warned her that it might burst (3rd time I blew into it) this time, but she was willing to take the risk. It burst. Sophie's face darkened and she gave the remains of her beloved balloon a forlorn look. She could have said "byebye" (she can now) to it, but she was overwhelmed by sadness. She carassed it for the last time before I picked it up and dropped it in the bin. She did not cry, but she was quiet (mourning perhaps) for a while. So.... Mama texted Papa and told him to buy a packet of balloons and a pump from Carrefour.

Sophie will be surprised tomorrow mroning when she wakes up to the balloons at her door. The things we do for our children....