Pinocchio. Puh puh puh

Sylvia’s last day of Toddler Time at Monona Grove Nursery School was a couple weeks ago.  The next time she’ll be back in school will be next fall.  She’s so excited to think that she’ll be going to school “All by herself.  With no Mommy!”

Here are Sylvie and Celia with Patrice, their Thursday Toddler Time teacher on the last day of class.  Patrice is awesome.  If you have a 0-5 year old in Madison, I highly, highly recommend Monona Grove Nursery School:)

I didn’t bring my camera to to our other class, but Sylvia and I both also really enjoyed Toddler Time with Diana.  Next year, dear Linda will be teaching Toddler Time along with Patrice.  And Sylvie will be in preschool on Thursday and Friday mornings with Sue and Jodi!

On to other news…about Sylvia and her letters.  In general, my girl marches to her own drum.  The beating of her drum doesn’t include much about letters, numbers, categorizing things, or puzzles.  She loves to be read to, and she loves to read to herself (yay!), yet she is completely oblivious to letters.  I’ve been pointing out every “S” for Sylvia that I see for months, and she doesn’t seem to care one bit.  “A” – who cares?  “O” like a circle…nope.

My sense is that she could learn her letters but that it just isn’t interesting to her.  So I spent a few weeks mulling over how to best approach this situation.  I’m sure she’ll learn her letters by the time she’s six…there’s nothing critical about early adoption of letter learning.  In fact, I’d rather she play and imagine and read herself stories and run through the grass rather than work on letter-learning.  Yet, I can’t help but feel like if I find the right things, it might spark her interest and she might take off on a grand exploration of sounds and letters and words.  What’s a parent to do?

Along the same lines, I was noting that Sylvie doesn’t have much interest in activities like puzzles.  So I don’t tend to do puzzles.  But perhaps I should pull them out sometimes just to encourage well-rounded-ness.  I think maybe I’ll make a point of doing some block-building and puzzle-doing and see if she sometimes wants to join in.

Back to letters – I thought about following the Montessori methods of making letters out of different textiles – like sandpaper – to help with learning.  But I have a sneaking suspicion that those wouldn’t spark her interest either.  I started thinking about this LeapFrog toy I’ve seen at friends’ houses that allows kids to spell out words.

And then I had a crisis of conscious.

We don’t do battery-operated toys.  I definitely don’t do educational battery operated toys.  No talking toys, no singing toys, no lights-flashing/noise-making toys.  And somehow I lucked out, and everyone in our gift-giving circle either espouses the same values or is super-respectful of my inclinations.  Our non-battery operated toys require imagination and creativity.  The child brings their ideas and spirit to the toy to play rather than looking to the toy to entertain them.

However, Mom always said, “Moderation in everything, including moderation.”  I was eying this LeapFrog singing, talking toy because I thought it might spark Sylvia’s interest in letters and sounds.  And you know what, it’s worked.

Sylvia (and Andrew) loves it.  She plays with it all the time (and it only makes me slightly insane).  Within a day or two, she could identify several letters.  But more than that, she was excited about pointing out those letters.

She likes hearing which letters make which sounds.

Then last weekend, we were at Terry’s and saw his Pinocchio doll.  Sylvia said, “Puh, puh, puh, Pinocchio.  What letter does puh make?”  My jaw dropped.  It’s so exciting to see my kids start to engage in the world in new ways.  For her to express – out of the blue – that she gets that words are made of sounds and that corresponds to a letter.  Be still my heart:)

So thanks, LeapFrog for sparking my daughter’s interest.  I’m not a converted batteries-in-toys advocate, but it’s neat to see how the right toy (or in other cases TV show or game) can launch a child in a new direction.  Yay Sylvia!