Wolfwind,
My son did something similar. We were looking at a puzzle that had O for octopus and my son remarked that the octopus had eight legs. I asked him who told him that and he said I told him. After more prompting he told me that octo meant eight just like the stop sign has eight sides. He really listens to me at least sometimes!
Now if he would only listen about climbing, knocking Dad’s chair over, squeezing out toothpaste and dumping laundry detergent in the washing machine. BTW these things all happened while I tired to clean the shower this morning.
Nani (my 4 year old) asked, “Mommy what does 100ths look like? Can you cut my pancake into 100ths? How small would they be? Like this?” and then she shows me with her fingers pinched. We have never actually had a lesson on fractions, I just took Dr. Titzers advice and every time we had round food I would cut it up and describe what fraction I was cutting it into. It’s amazing what they can learn by just conversing with them, answering their questions, and taking the time to describe things in detail.
Once my 18m DS refused to go to bed. After many tries I gave him a choice, sleeping or do reading. He chose reading, and read all 150 words I showed him (most of his pronunciation is off, but he tried). after reading he asked for bed LOL
This week my son was putting some toys inside a box and “counting” from 1 to 2, but in Chinese. This is something I never teached and he saw on Ni Hao Kai Lan and Fun Fun Elmo.
A (3.2) is potty trained since 2.5 but we still praise him for his potty activities. When he has done his job, I usually ask what it looks like. She says that it looks like a moon, snake, I C, cloud etc.
Last time. I asked what it looks like. He looked, thought and said:
iota. Greek alphabet letter.
My 19 mo twins playing around a poster of the Solar System. DS points at Saturn and says “Uranus!”, and DD says “Noooo Pablo noooo, that’s Saturn!!!” lol
I just had another awesome EL moment with my two and a half year old. We were playing on the futon and I mentioned that Big Girl A knows how to hang like a bat (she likes to do this from the arm of the futon). That led to this conversation:
A: Bats come out at night!
Me: Yes, they do. Bats are nocturnal. That means they come out at night.
A: Owls are nocernal!
Me: That’s right! You used your memory. You remembered that owls are nocturnal.
A: What else are nocernal?
Me (with her asking “What else?” every time I came up with one): Well, skunks are; we just read that today in your wildlife book. And mice come out at night sometimes. And some cats, I think.
We have a book of TS Elliot poems about cats that she’s read maybe four times as bedtime stories in the last year. I was very impressed by that and the owl comment.
Oooh that’s great.
Must buy TS Elliot poetry reminder.
The other grandparents do think our kust turned 2yr old can read after this happened…
Background is, pamphlets lying around from travel agent.
Trip to Europe subject of anticipation.
Two year old grabbed a brochure and said this to her mum.
“Read the Turkey one mum”
The weather here has been allowing us so much time outside, so Alex and I were ‘playing’ math outside on the patio with chalk… We were drawing, and measuring after we had read a book about standard versus non-standard measurement, so we incorporated this into our perimeter and area activities.
We had just drawn a huge right triangle, which Alex measured the perimeter of with a ruler (in feet), as well as her own foot to illustrate the difference…
When she got to the hypotenuse, she started hopping up and down, shouting “Mommy! Look, it’s a 'HOP-ontenuse! See?! Hop, hop, hop! That’s PUNNY!”
after reading he asked for bed LOL