(I know, everyone thinks
their kid is a genius. )
I've always thought Luke was super smart, but wasn't quite sure about Andrew for a while. He was a slower talker and even still is hard to understand at times. His birthday is in July, so he will be 0ne of the youngest kids in the class when he starts school. Lately I've been thinking that I've been slacking with Andrew and I better start teaching him his letters and numbers and how to write, etc. because he is starting school in just 2 years, and I don't want him to be at a disadvantage due to his late birthday.
When Andrew was about 2 1/2, I began to realize that he was a pretty smart kiddo. He put together a little puzzle all by himself. It was VERY small (about 12 pieces) and probably wasn't THAT big of a deal for a 2 1/2 year old, but it at least clued me into the fact that he was CAPABLE of doing puzzles. I was used to Luke working on a puzzle he had done many times, so if Andrew even TRIED to help, Luke would show him where to put it. Anytime we brought out a NEW puzzle however, Luke at age 4 still usually needed some help from us.
The next thing we knew, Andrew would be sitting quietly in a corner doing puzzles any time he could. We realized that if we let him alone with a puzzle and didn't help at ALL, he had the patience to do it on his own, pretty quickly at that.
I brought out a stack of puzzles that Luke had always had trouble with and Andrew flew through
them. Suddenly every puzzle we had, he would put together, take it apart, back together, take it apart, over and over again. He just LOVED doing these puzzles all day long! We started calling him the "puzzle genius". I really don't know what is a normal age to do puzzles, but I was pretty impressed with this "Cars" puzzle he did a couple months ago because of all the trees at the top. And it only took him a few minutes to do it!
Anyway, then came his letter
obsession. This started about a month ago. I knew Andrew knew the letter A and a few other letters, but we were at the swim center and he started naming all the letters on the wall! "K-I-D-S F-I-R-
(what is that one called?) S- T S-W-I-M S-C-H-O-O-L" He needed help with the S and the W.
I thought,
wow! I can't believe he knows all of those! Then I remembered he and Luke had
been playing on their little computers every morning for the last week or two, so I'm sure this is where he learned it.
Now, for the last month he is literally OBSESSED with letters! Anytime he sees letters anywhere, he wants to stop what we're doing and spell the word. This obviously slows us down a lot since there are letters EVERYWHERE in this world! I would say he spends about 50 % of his day sitting and reading letters in books, playing his leap frog letter game, computer game, singing his ABC'S, etc. It is amazing how many alphabet books are coming out of the woodwork. (lots from Dr. Seuss, Chicka Chicka ABC, Sesame Street, Arthur, etc). I had no idea we had so many!!
When we are outside, he shows me sticks that look like "k's" or "L's" or "V's" and even in the middle of the night when he woke up to go potty, he whispered in his little raspy voice, "
mommy, I want my ABC cheezits when I wake up". When he got home from Sunday school a couple weeks ago, he said, shaking with intense excitement in his voice, "
MOMMY, we did a ABC puzzle today!!!!!" Now for the genius part of it. . .
Andrew began sounding out words too! On Max's shirt, he spelled the letters "G-O-D" and then slowly sounded it out "G O D". He also read some of the letters on a poster we have and then tried to sound it out "Be Called". (he read it "besalled" with short e's) He knew the SOUNDS that letters made! I really had no idea! He didn't know ALL of them so then I put in a "hooked on Phonics" CD that we had. He holds his flash cards as the lady reads the letter, the sound it makes, and a word that starts with that letter ("A, a, apple. . . B, b, bell", etc). He put this track on repeat and listened to it for about 45 minutes straight. He now knows all of his sounds inside and out! I think he is ready to learn to read!
Last, but not least, one night, Andrew spelled out all the letters on Max's shirt "L-I-G-O-N-I-E-R" and then said "
but I wish it said A-N-D-R-E-W. . . (then he proceeded to point to each letter in 'Ligonier', starting with the R and named what each letter
would be if the shirt said 'Andrew'
) the 'R' would be a W, the 'E' would be a E, the 'I' would be R, the 'N' would be D, the 'O' would be N, and the 'G' would be A!" He did this all in his head! pretty impressive to me!
By the way, all of these picture were not set up. They were easy candids to take because this is what he does ALL day!!
I usually look forward to the day when each of our kids can feed himself with a spoon. In some ways, it makes life so much easier because I can just set a bowl in front of them and they take care of themselves. Obviously this allows me more time to get other things done. However, when they INSIST to feed themselves before they are really ready, it most definitely comes at a cost.
