We continued talking about Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats today.
The instances of traffic lights within this book spurred a mini talk on safety. We don’t live in a big city where we have to walk across streets every day, but it’s still a good thing to discuss….especially when the kids take notice of red lights from the back seat and yell, “Yellow, Mommy! It’s yellow, and that means be careful and slow down!” (Not that I need to be told to slow down. I drive like someone twice my age.)
We went outside in the frigid temperatures and played “Red Light, Green Light.” G surprised me by already knowing how to play the game! How he learned, I will never know — he couldn’t tell me how he remembered it, where he saw it, or when he played it. But it sure did shorten the learning curve! We had fun with it until my fingers were frozen and I mandated that we find “inside things to do” for the balance of the afternoon.
We came in for a traffic light snack…honey graham sticks with PB and M&Ms. G ate one color off at a time and proceeded to explain to me in great, dramatic detail the traffic dilemmas that would result from that color light falling off of a real traffic signal. This kid.
We set R to work on some phonics games online and then G began his next project: An “I Can” book. We talked about how the boy in the book tried and tried to whistle….until at last, he learned to do it and became so proud of his accomplishment. I asked G about things he used to not be able to do (as a baby and smaller tot) that he could do now that he is four…and he rattled off a list! He drew himself performing five or six skills in his “I Can” book, then dictated to me the captions for each.
One of my all-time favorite things to do as of late is to sit beside him and watch him draw. G doesn’t just draw — he narrates each item and its purpose, its function, its detailed description as he pens it onto paper. It is amazing to see how he is gaining dexterity and blossoming his imagination.
Here is is showing how he’s old enough now to brush is own teeth — see the sink, drain, and running faucet? He insists that he is using an “electric toothbrush” (hence the zig-zag cord), but we don’t even own one. And one hand is “normal,” but the square-ish hand holding the toothbrush is his “robot hand.” See what I mean about the imagination? LOVE. IT.
The finished “I Can” book.
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