Progress Notes -- Paddy, Aidan

Sometimes a child takes a cognitive leap, seemingly overnight, though it probably only seems that way. (Remember the Frog and Toad story about Toad planting a garden and how frustrated he got waiting for his seeds to sprout?)

In the past couple of days Paddy seems to have had a bunch of mental seeds sprout.

At Mass, he was trying to read the Responsorial Psalm -- it helped that it is one line which we sing slowly over and over -- he got to where he was following the words and whispering them on his own. He tried to follow the hymns too, but with less success because they move faster and the verse schematic is difficult to follow.

He drew several books -- he can draw a human shape, rudimentarily, now. He had me staple them together so now he has about 3 books of action scenes. We drew several together so they could "fight".

Today he made several little post-it notes with letters drawn on them, which he asked me to "read" -- then he had me staple them together, too. He's been carrying the book around asking people to "read" them.

His attention span for read-alouds seems endless -- it is a matter of me finding the time (which I need to make into a priority) rather than him getting bored.

As for Aidan -- I have been putting out the HWT letterforms daily -- which he enjoys -- and also we invented a game where he chants the months of the year and counts them off on his fingers -- he LOVES this -- loves the sounds of the words. He also can recite his whole name, where he lives, and phone number, which is a good skill for this age --at least, they always made a big push to teach this at the primary level in the older kids' parochial school years.

Progress Notes

A couple of weeks ago we got a new car, a bright red SUV which seats seven. As a consequences, Aidan has rediscovered his old fire engine, which has roughly the same shape and color as the Dodge Durango.

He found an old play house of Clare's which has been neglected for so long that I had it in the Goodwill pile.

So at first he was playing the game "driving the Durango into the garage."

A bit later he discovered that the back hatches open just like it does on the Durango. So he stuffed a couple of duplo blocks in the back, which is exactly what Kevin does when he drives to town to go shopping.

Today he discovered while washing the real Durango, that there is a spare tire under the carriage of the car. So now he has put a broken yo-yo, that is shaped like a tire, in the back of his firetruck.

All evening he has been saying, "The coolers are in the back of the car. We're going to Costco." and "Now we're going to Mass," and "It's time to go to college to see Liam." He came up pretending to hold things in his arms and said, "Where does the chicken go? Where do the eggs go?" I realized he was imitating his siblings who ask when they are unloading the groceries.

It is nice to see this....pretend play getting more and more sophisticated.