At almost 18 months, Elsa is full of surprises lately. She now knows and can identify numbers 1 through 9, as well as a handful of letters! Starting a few weeks ago, she would sometimes point at large, obvious letters on signs or in books and name them. The first few times she did it, I thought it was just a weird coincidence (like, "Wow, she just pointed at an M and said what sure sounded like 'M!' How funny!"). But when it kept happening, I finally decided that yes, she really does know some letters and numbers. The other day, Bob was wearing a t-shirt that said "2001", and without us even prompting her, Elsa pointed at it and said, "Two, oh, oh, one." So then we tried my shirt, which said Michigan State, and sure enough, she correctly identified the M, I, C, G, and A. She thought the S in "State" was a 5, and she always thinks Ns are Ms, but still, not a bad showing for 18 months old!
This letter-and-number thing is surprising not only because it seems relatively early, but also because it's not something I've even worked on with her (well, I started working on it a few weeks ago, but only because she had started naming them on her own). I'm guessing good ol' Sesame Street is mainly responsible for teaching her this stuff, although she does have a lot of toys and books that teach letters and numbers too. She now attempts to count along with Sesame Street, and whenever they say the alphabet, she immediately starts reciting random letter-like sounds (mostly vowels). : )
Other than that, we've just been trying to survive this truly horrible winter by finding fun new
inside activities. Elsa's just recently gotten into coloring, so we've been doing a lot of that together. She's also getting better and better with the Legos that had frustrated her so much a month or two ago (see the tower she built, above). And she continues to be obsessed with any type of ball—Bob recently gave her her first nerf football, and she
loves it. She can even say "football," although the pause between "foot" and "ball" is so long that she must have repeated it 10 or 20 times before I realized what she was talking about. I know all little kids love balls, but I do think she's a bit more obsessed than usual. It's well known in both her swimming and music classes that if there's a ball around, Elsa
must have it. In fact, she cries if her swimming teacher
doesn't get out the beach ball for the kids to play with.
At almost 18 months, Elsa is full of surprises lately. She now knows and can identify numbers 1 through 9, as well as a handful of letters! Starting a few weeks ago, she would sometimes point at large, obvious letters on signs or in books and name them. The first few times she did it, I thought it was just a weird coincidence (like, "Wow, she just pointed at an M and said what sure sounded like 'M!' How funny!"). But when it kept happening, I finally decided that yes, she really does know some letters and numbers. The other day, Bob was wearing a t-shirt that said "2001", and without us even prompting her, Elsa pointed at it and said, "Two, oh, oh, one." So then we tried my shirt, which said Michigan State, and sure enough, she correctly identified the M, I, C, G, and A. She thought the S in "State" was a 5, and she always thinks Ns are Ms, but still, not a bad showing for 18 months old!
This letter-and-number thing is surprising not only because it seems relatively early, but also because it's not something I've even worked on with her (well, I started working on it a few weeks ago, but only because she had started naming them on her own). I'm guessing good ol' Sesame Street is mainly responsible for teaching her this stuff, although she does have a lot of toys and books that teach letters and numbers too. She now attempts to count along with Sesame Street, and whenever they say the alphabet, she immediately starts reciting random letter-like sounds (mostly vowels). : )
Other than that, we've just been trying to survive this truly horrible winter by finding fun new inside activities. Elsa's just recently gotten into coloring, so we've been doing a lot of that together. She's also getting better and better with the Legos that had frustrated her so much a month or two ago (see the tower she built, above). And she continues to be obsessed with any type of ball—Bob recently gave her her first nerf football, and she loves it. She can even say "football," although the pause between "foot" and "ball" is so long that she must have repeated it 10 or 20 times before I realized what she was talking about. I know all little kids love balls, but I do think she's a bit more obsessed than usual. It's well known in both her swimming and music classes that if there's a ball around, Elsa must have it. In fact, she cries if her swimming teacher doesn't get out the beach ball for the kids to play with.
1 comment:
WOW Elsa! How incredible that you can count and recognize some letters already! You are the smartest little girl. We can't wait to see you in the spring. We miss you!
Love, Aunt Ellen, Uncle Dave, and Ca-Ca
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