One day last week Benji was awake as I was leaving for work and called to me from his doorway, "Mommy, let's go spell." He led me downstairs to the family room and pulled out one of his toys — one where there are cards with three-letter words and a bunch of letter tiles. Unfortunately I was running late so I couldn't stop to play, but we had already spent plenty of time spelling earlier in the week and would continue to do so all week long.
Yes, my two-year-old is completely obsessed with spelling right now. He keeps asking us things like "Daddy, spell ice cream" or "Mommy, how to spell Mickey Mouse?" And he's also trying to sound out words on his own. Several of his toys have taught him the letter sounds with the song "B says buh" so he's been trying to put that to good use and sounds out the words in his books and elsewhere. We've also found random words spelled out on the fridge, such as "stop" and "pig." I'm sure some of it is memorization, but he's definitely trying to employ reading techniques and seems to understand the idea that the words are made up of sounds.
All of this is fed by his favorite TV show right now — "Super Why!" It's a PBS show where spelling and reading help to save the day and Benji really gets into it. It's the only show I see him actively participate in when the characters ask the audience to. So apparently it's doing its job since he's completely excited and gets the general idea (of course he gets a bunch of words wrong given the number of rules and the number of words that don't follow the rules, such as silent letters and vowel combos). Anyway, I love Benji's insatiable curiosity and need to learn!
And now I bring you a random photo dump. Since I don't have photos that really illustrate Benji's love of spelling and I have lots of random ones that don't warrant their own themed blog, I bring you the random photo dump.
In what was one of the snowiest winters ever, we had yet another snow in early March. We were tired of being cooped up inside and the temperatures weren't too bad so we took Benji to the playground.
I figured it wasn't any worse (temperature- and safety-wise) than playing in the snow in the front yard. Benji enjoyed the break in routine.
This particular playground has a rubber mat as the ground, so it wasn't a messy mulch mud to climb around in. It looked like some other kids had been having snowball fights before we arrived. I think Benji and Daddy are making snowballs in this photo after Benji went down the slide.
Just a cute close-up.
Although he's getting to be a "big boy" I still marvel at the perfect tiny hands.
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
