Letters and numbers with Duncan

I found an idea on another blog (I'll try to track down the link) that involved tracing plate-sized circles on a shower curtain and drawing letters in them, then playing games on it. They suggested tossing a beanbag and naming the letter it landed on, or naming a letter and then aiming the beanbag to land on it, or jumping from letter to letter.

I made up a shower curtain with circles and letters and Sayer helped me color them in. Duncan has been having homework this morning, tossing the bag to land on a letter and telling me the letter. Or I'll tell him to find a letter to stand on and then name one for him to jump to. He's doing okay. There is easily as much 'I don't know' or 'I can't find it' coming out of his mouth as there are correct identifications. Part of the problem is that if he's standing in the middle of the sheet, half of the letters are upside down to his perspective. We'll keep trying with it for a bit and see if we can make it work better :)

This morning I also suggested that it would be Duncan's first day with book work. He was excited. :) I got out the wipe-and-erase numbers book and handed him a green marker. We worked together to trace and then draw the number 1. First I encouraged him to hold the pen correctly, then I had to repeat to him to start at the top blue line and stop at the bottom red line. He tended to start just above the blue line and continue to the bottom of the page. He figured it out, though, and drew 7-8 nice ones, and then we moved on to the 2 page. That one was 'tricky.' :) We only did the tracing part, not the writing-on-our-own part. He'll follow the curve (generally) and then draw on a foot - often after lifting the pen and starting at the end of the foot and connecting it to the curve, instead of continuing the line by changing direction.

We decided to stop there. Tomorrow we'll try some more of both the letter and number activities. And maybe make some sand alphabet/number cards ...