Writing His Name!

This week, I visited our local Catholic homeschooling store, which, sadly, is closing. The store simply can't compete with online shopping prices--which is an unavoidable fact, but it's too bad because I can get far more interesting ideas from such a bookstore's owner and employees than I can stumbling around by myself online. The only bright side is that the store is having slash-and-burn prices all month! I stocked up and it was a lot of fun.

John is working on fine motor skills with his new small pop beads, which take a lot of finger strength to assemble. He enjoyed making "worms."

See what John wrote? His name--all by himself!

I promise I won't write at such length when my future children first write their names, but this is my firstborn!

I've long known that John is a perfectionist, so he doesn't want to perform if he might not do it perfectly the first time. (Ask me how I know how it feels to be that child!) I have long been perplexed because John appeared to still be in the "scribbling stage." Yet on several occasions, he has shown more developed abilities. One time, out of the blue (when he was two, I think), he wrote his name legibly and showed it to me. Then, never again. For one day (age three), he drew stick figures, then never again. I would gently probe every so often, sitting down with him and asking if he could draw a shape or letter like I was doing, and he'd just draw scribbles wildly on the page, then say lightly, "I can't do it."

On Monday we were visiting with an occupational therapist and she wanted to test his fine motor skills. She asked him to cut out along a circle she drew, and then she asked him to draw several shapes as she drew them. He performed everything perfectly. The OT said he was doing beautifully in his pre-writing skills, and that he even held the crayon correctly and drew the shapes in the exact same directions as she had done. I was slackjawed and told her that he'd never done such a thing before, telling him about his scribbling. She was amazed that that was his first time.

Now his secret was out! This made me feel inspired to try again teaching some pre-writing skills. When I was at the discount sale, I bought some pre-K curriculum from Handwriting Without Tears, which I've heard good things about. One of the items was a tiny blackboard and chalk, which John took great interest in. He wanted to play with it, so I told him it was for drawing shapes, and did he want to try drawing shapes? He agreed, so we started with things very basic, like a plus sign.

Then I drew the "shape" of a 'J', and he copied it. I told him excitedly that that was the first letter of his name, and did he want to learn the other three letters? He did, so we worked through each letter at a time. He could do it so quickly! Then I got a piece of paper, showed him his name, and asked if he thought he could write his own name. And he did it!

All I know is that it will be really interesting learning how to work with a little perfectionist, figuring out what his motivation is, and not forcing him such that he simply refuses to do anything.

Okay, sorry for writing so many words about a kid simply writing his name--so embarrassing of me! As I said, he's my firstborn!