This was a bit of a breakthrough because he has pretty much refused to colour for the sake of colouring up until now. I haven’t pushed, because I don’t love colouring (do you??), but I would definitely like to see him feeeling safer with crayons or markers and taking on more creativity projects.
I have started doing a kind of “letter semaphore” that he loves: when I tell him what letter to write, I show it with my arms held up high to form the “sticks” of the letter. I move my arms jerkily on purpose, like a robot.
Up into a triangle for an A, then one arm for the line across. Straight arm up for the stick, then three horizontal arms down down down for the rest of the E. I “signal” the letters backwards, so they’ll be right way round for him. We do every letter of his name that way except the G. He loves it and has a giggle fit every time I do it.
Our big project is LEARNING HOW TO PEDAL A TRICYCLE. I have never had to teach this to a kid, but he’s been stroller-bound too long, or something, because he just does not have the knack of pedalling at all. I wanted him to use the metal Radio Flyer trike, but it’s a bit bigger, so I took out the little plastic kiddie trike and that has just about the right leg length for him. I walk alongside and shove his little feet up and over.
This is nuts. I keep thinking I should just let him figure it out… but I also want him to be able to tootle around on a bike of some kind as soon as possible, so until he gets the hang of it, out we go to practice on the bike!
For the record I like coloring. It was hard when Froggy was this age and I could not interest her in coloring with me as a down time activity.
ReplyDeleteWhat kid would not like a semaphore mom? Picturing it gives me giggles
As for pedaling, it sure can be frustrating. We worked on it for a long time with Froggy both at home and OT. All I can say is be patient and keep at it. He will be so grateful eventually and it helps lots with other skills.
My four year old son usually colors everything in one color.
ReplyDeleteHe also still doesn't know how to pedal. I've tried to show him but he doesn't seem to get it. He usually prefers to just "walk" it along with his feet instead.
I think the reason that Kali finally learned to pedal was that she's been watching other kids at school do it every day (our school has a veritable fleet of tricycles available for before-school and recess times). Seriously, she was totally unable to pedal until a few weeks after the kids started using the school trikes; Now she's tootling around the back patio with no problem. Maybe we should organize some tricycle pedaling parties for GZ?
ReplyDelete