January 20, 2011

Samuel enjoys drawing, painting, coloring.  But when I want him to practice his letters, he is never very excited, and always whines for me to help him and tells me he can’t do it.  So the other day, after painting a picture of a “great big white shark” he told me to write his name on it.  “No, you do it, Samuel!”  “Will you help me?”  “Nope, you do it yourself.”  “But I don’t know how!!”  “Yes you do.  What are the letters in your name?”  “S-A-M-U-E-L.”  “Ok, so start with S.”  Then I listened in surprise as he said each letter slowly, one at a time.  “How about all my name with the R and the Gs?”  “Ok, I will tell you those letters if you need help.”  “B-R-I-G-G . . . “  “Two Gs?!  I have two Gs?!”  {The excitement of that never gets old for him.}

Then he showed me the paper.  Um, I was blown away.  Ok ok, I am very aware kids his age do this easily.  They also color in the lines.  Draw detailed pictures with facial features and body parts.  And sit still.  Or so I’ve heard.  But this was a big deal for Samuel.  We were very proud and promptly took a picture before sticking it on the fridge.  Way to go, Sammo!!

Right, you can’t actually see anything in that picture.  So here are the close ups.

Samuel’s lines and letters have started turning into pictures with stories.  It’s been really fun watch Sam hone his fine motor skills and create his perfect preschooler works of art.  

This is some sidewalk art from last week.  “Here’s the knight, and this is his sword and his shield.”  (Can you see it?  Sword on the left, then knight’s head and face with two legs no arms, and shield on the right.)

And on Sunday, while trying to keep Sam distracted with something quiet so we could watch conference, I started cutting out pumpkins.  As I cut out different shapes so he could create his own jack-o-lanterns, Sam got to work with his marker on the first pumpkin.  He did this on his own, without any direction.  Including the ”green eyebrowers and scary things on his face.”

We ended up cutting out more Halloween things.  Sam wanted “a Sam and Owen jackolatter for the Mommy and Daddy jackolatter” and a mouth that said “Woooooo” for his ghost.  And then I cut out pieces for a witch and Samuel put it together and decorated it himself.  When we finished, Samuel was happy to hang his creations for display and we were both pretty proud of his work.