Category Archives for language

Great toy: Lauri Primer Pak

We’re currently in Hawaii with Ruby, and in preparation for the long plane ride, I bought some toys and activities to keep her occupied. So far, the best in terms of time spent and value has been the Lauri Primer Pak:

It is packed full of absorbing activities and only cost me about $15. I haven’t even given all of these things to Ruby yet! So far, we’ve gotten the most use out of the alphabet puzzle. It’s really helping her learn all the letters, and as of today I think there are only 3 or 4 letters whose names she forgets. We play a game where I remove all the letters and put them in a bag, then pull one out randomly. She names it (if she can), and then puts it in the puzzle. It’s fun to watch her learn and get faster.

I should mention that this is a game that she enjoys and asks to play. We play a game where I take all the letters out of the puzzle and put them in a bag, then randomly pull one out. She names it (if she can), and then puts it in the puzzle. It’s been fun to watch her get better and faster at it each time. Afterwards, she usually asks me to spell words for her, so I show her short words with no duplicate letters such as RUBY, CAT, RUN, and MAP (which she remembered from before).

Write to Ruby

Now that Ruby is old enough to understand communication methods like snail mail and the telephone, I thought I’d try explaining email next. I’ve set up an email address for her that goes into a separate folder (in my email program). If you’re interested, I invite you to send Ruby an email whenever you have something to say, and I will read it to her. As soon as she’s able to understand replying, I’ll try to transcribe and send her response. I’ll also save all the messages so she can re-read them when she’s older.

I don’t want to post the address here publicly (to avoid spam). Send me an email or comment on this entry if you’d like the address and I’ll give it to you.

Ruby read her first word!

Ruby can identify roughly half of the letters in the alphabet and is currently very interested in letters. We have this book in our bedroom:

One day a week or two ago, we were hanging out in the bedroom and Ruby pointed to it and said “M – A – P”.  I told her the word was “map”, and it was easy for her to remember when looking at the book because the letters are made of maps.  It got me wondering if she could identify the word in a different context.

Today, I showed her the word MAP written in crayon on a piece of paper, and asked her what word it was, and she said “map!” We all did a happy literacy dance.

Sentencing

Today I noticed that Ruby is speaking more and more in full sentences. It seems like she made a leap recently from simple verbs and verb/object pairs to completing her sentences with pronouns and articles.

“Couching” and other verbs

Ruby’s language development has really been zipping along this month. Her grammar seems to be better day by day. She understands and uses pronouns and possessives and is starting to experiment with verb tenses.

At first, of course, it was just the infinitive: (to) sit, (to) play, (to) eat. Occasionally she would repeat (and seem to understand) a past tense word we said. Now, though, she’s starting to grasp the present participle (sitting, playing, eating) and is applying it to words on her own. She’s still not clear that there’s a difference between nouns and verbs, so she will often take a noun and add the -ing to describe what she’s doing. She calls putting her feet on something “feeting.” When we were sitting on the couch last night, she said we were “couching”.

I’d say she’s just about at the point where her English is surpassing my (left over from high school) French. Like her, I understand way more French than I can speak. I too have a decently large vocabulary of French words and understand pronouns, but get tripped up constantly when it comes to conjugating.  So I sympathize with her.

New things I noticed today

I was watching Ruby play at the play center today and noticed two new skills:

1. She can make the cars go forward (Fred Flintstone style) as well as backward.

2. She has started using pronouns, and correctly too. I heard her say “I found it” about a toy and wondered how long she’s understood the concept.

Carrots and Bunnies

Ruby likes to stand on a stool next to the counter and watch me cook, and I think that’s pretty awesome. Today I was making stir-fried vegetables, and I gave her a piece of raw carrot to eat. To my surprise, she ate it — she’s been fairly averse to raw vegetables all her short life.

This is good news, because her diet is generally pretty light on vegetables. It’s nice to have another option available to round out her nutrition.

Anyway, I gave her the carrot and said to her, “this is a carrot”.

She said, “bunnies”. Bunnies?

I checked with Kate, and she has not taught her any carrot-bunny associations. So who is teaching her that carrots and bunnies go together?

(note: I don’t have a problem with it, I’m just curious about where she picks these things up)

R is for Ruby

Ruby had a great time walking around the mall last night. She loved the mini billboards with different ads that scroll up and down. She liked walking along in the crowds and being carried in my arms and on my shoulders.

We were walking out when she started saying, “Ruby! Ruby!” and pointing. I turned to see what she was pointing at, but didn’t notice anything in particular so we headed back in the general direction of her pointing*. It was the big Nordstrom sign, about 15 feet long and at eye-level. It turns out, she was pointing at the “R”s! Because R is for Ruby. We tried a few of the other letters in the sign, but she only knew about her “R”s.

We turned to continue out to the car and Ruby said, very knowingly, “words”.

* sometimes, to emphasize the fact that she is pointing at something, Ruby will say, “Point! Point!” Not this time, though.