Counting Begins

This is such an awesome time for getting our children ready for the basic skills they will need later in life.  It's so easy to just follow the lead of your child and to see the joy it brings them.

Earlier this week, my husband brought out a blanket that Orion's great grandmother made him.  It is a "street scene" blanket that looks like a 2 dimensional town.  It's really cute with a Post Office, Fire Department, and of course: bear figures as the townsfolk.

I've taken some of Orion's toys and pretended they were walking the sidewalks and Orion thinks it's hilarious to watch them go to each of the little stops in town.  After a while though, he finally started realizing that there were bears on the blanket.  He kept pointing to them and saying, "mmm!"  And I would respond "yes, that is a firefighter bear" (etc.).  Since he kept doing it--and we all know once kids find something that entertains them, it becomes repetitive for the next 15 minutes--I started counting the bears for them.  He would point and I would count.  He loved it!  We are actively working together on numbers, counting, and sorting.  So easy right?

The best part is when you see how what you did earlier correlates to something later in the day.  Orion has a counting book with pop out pictures and this was hours later that he brought the counting book to me and started pointing at the numbers.  Of course when I started counting, you could see his face light up because he was making that connection to what we had done earlier that day.  It's brilliant to see the mind of my son grasping ideas.  It makes me trust that this path is going to be one filled with happiness, fun, and lots of learning!