Handwriting

Sophia has been practicing her "writing" and has been mimicking us as we make lists and things. Her dexterity with the pen is definitely improving, and she loves to play with her "phonics book", which is an enormous book of pre-k activities like drawing triangles and identifying which thing is biggest. She spends hours going through the book, and I think it is good practice for homework (never too early, right). She has been able to draw basic faces for a while now, most recently including eyes, ears, cheeks, nose and mouth, (all of which are round squiggles), this linear "list making" is a relatively new development. It's clear that she knows what writing more-or-less looks like, and is trying to replicate that.

 

Snow Day

October is a little early for snow, but this is saskatchewan after all and these things have been known to happen. It wasn't much snow, but we made the most of it, making rudimentary snow angels and little tiny snowmen.

 

 

 

Sophia loves to swing in the snow (go figure) and her favorite swing game is to knock daddy over. Daddy sometimes chooses not quite to go along with it, what with the grass stains and the falling over, but in the winter, it is much easier to fall over without significant damage to jeans, knees, or dignity, because of snow and extra padding. We can't really credit the snow and breaking a fall today, but the extra padding helped.

 
the windup...

 
and he's out! (see the nice snow angel?)

 

 

Getting along famously

Sophia and Jacob are siblings. And they do fight. Most recently, whenever Jacob pick up a toy and starts to play with it, Sophia suddenly gains interest and will grab it from him. A few weeks ago, Jacob would not mind, simply moving on to another toy which Sophia would then steal. But a few days ago, Jacob started to get indignant. Whether it's the new teeth (more evidence soon) or whether he is just starting to be aware of justice or is just inhereiting his father's temper (sorry my buddy), it is starting to change dynamics in the household. Sophia no longer gets away with grabbing Jacob's toys, and as a result, she often asks for "when sophie gets angry" as a bedtime story.

Regardless, the two of them get along very well most of the time. Here is evidence.

 
 

Excuses

Sophia must be hearing us make excuses from time to time because she came up with this masterful argument, completely bulletproof, that allows her to avoid anything she doesn't want to do. "My hands are full ... of hands". I mean, I can understand it if her hands were full, say, of toys that she was picking up off the floor, or if her hands were full of dinner she was preparing, but apparently, hands are enough to fill hands and prevent any kind of work. Here she is avoiding brushing her teeth...

Sound Effects, with blocks

Sophie loves to play with blocks, and for the longest time her block-playing has consisted of knocking over the towers I build for her. But recently she has discovered something new - when she puts two "fireplaces" (as I call them, you may know them as "arches") together, arch-to-arch, she apparently produces a camera. This alone is sufficient proof that she has an amazing imagination, but she also produces the sound that goes along with the camera. Now what do you suppose the sound of a camera is, exactly? "click", perhaps? or the less onomatopoeic but more common "snap"? Nope, for our daughter, the sound of the camera is "chick-zot". just listen for yourself...