When did Little Miss O get so smart?!
Seriously, we were playing with her toys and then she caught a glimpse of our Scrabble board game (this was my fave game growing up and it was mine and my Dad's 'thing').
Me: That one's for grown ups darling.
Little Miss O: But if you show me how, then I can do it too!
Me: [puzzled! How could she play scrabble if she can't read?!...or am I restricting her growth here...shouldn't I be nurturing her interests, why was I setting a barrier?!]
Me: Ok then, first of all you put all the letters in the bag, shake them and then take 7 tiles and put them on your rack.
In saying this to her I realised, I have already taught her the words 'tile' and 'rack'. I've never heard her say these before. She then mistakenly counted out 8 tiles.
Me: Ok sweetie, count them again, that's 8 tiles you have there. If you put one tile back in the bag then you'll have 7 which is the right number"
[Ummm is this her first lesson in subtraction; I hated maths at school, but she was loving 'playing scrabble' this way!]
We then turned all the tiles up the right way - you know with the point number in the bottom corner.
[Ummm, is this not an easy way to get her to recognise letters the correct way up?!]
Then we started looking for the letters of her name (which she knows) and spelling all of her names out on the scrabble board.
Little Miss O was actually loving it! She felt like she was 'playing' the game as she was putting pieces on the board. I asked her what some of the letters were...and not only did she know them but she told me some names that begin with that letter!
"that's 'T' that sounds like 'Tuh' for Thomas...that's 'curly 'C' that sound like 'Cuh' for Catherine..!"
Ummmm... seriously! When did my child get so smart?! She's 3 and a half and every day I ask what she did at nursery and she tells me 'I played'. She gives me this look as if to say 'what do you think I was doing Mummy, working?!'.. I know she like a sponge at the moment and she's taking it all in. It's just that, at the moment, it seems so very blatant lately that she is learning something in everything she does
...how dare I refuse to nurture her interest in words and reading (well 'playing' to her) by saying 'scrabble is for grown ups'! eish! I'm the first to encourage her to do things that I think she is physically capable of - it was my idea to take her ice-skating (at age tiny!), help her collect 'nature' from a lake, but when it comes to mental capabilities, I think I underestimate just how far she can go. My bad?!
Once again, Little Miss O has taught me something! There is an opportunity for her to learn in everything she does and without her even realising. Score! I suppose this is my job. I actually can't wait for the rest of the things she'll end up teaching me in the future!
If you have little one's how far do you let them do 'grown up' things?
Mrs O
x
