Play and Learn Every Day

3 1/2 years old

I have been looking forward to teaching Ethan to read and write ever since he was born, but the last thing that I wanted to do is rush him into anything and make him dislike these things that are such an important part of his education and something that I hope he grows to love. So I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed when he wasn't that interested in colouring as a toddler, as I knew that meant he wouldn't be an early writer. But I backed off and waited until he was ready, and now he's been happily writing his name for the past few months and I couldn't be more proud!

Our first steps in preparation for writing were lots of fine motor activities for his hands like threading and playing with play dough, just trying to build up those muscles. I encouraged him to colour and to do lots of scribbling activities with different materials, like mark making in the dirt with a stick or using finger crayons to draw rainbows. Ethan absolutely loved activities like letter driving with his toy cars to trace over the letters of his name in a fun way or using a sensory writing tray to copy designs and the letters of his name.

All of this play dough play for building hand strength did inspire me to give Ethan a chance to spell out his name by making play dough letters. I just wrote out his name on a piece of card and reminded him how to roll out the play dough into long strands, then he set off to make all the letters to spell out his name.

When it comes to actually picking up a pencil to write his name I've tried a few different techniques with Ethan to find which one suited him best. All children learn differently, so no way is exactly right for everyone and I really wanted Ethan to be comfortable and confident about his writing. The first way that I tried is the one that I always used with the children I taught in schools, which was to make dotted lines of the letters for Ethan to trace over. I always draw a larger or different coloured dot at the starting point of the letter, but at this point I'm not correcting Ethan if he then goes the wrong way around as that's something we can work on later.

The next way that I tried was to write out Ethan's name on a separate piece of paper for him to be able to look at and copy. This way he sees what the finished letters should look like and is able to imitate them. This can also be done one letter at a time to not overwhelm a child when they are first learning to write. I found that Ethan was often going back to the card and almost tracing it from above before writing it on his paper, then checking with me that he was getting it right.

The third way, and Ethan's preferred way to write his name is just by listening to me describe how he should write it and following instructions. I say things like 'draw a straight line down and then three lines across' for writing a letter E and so on. His name doesn't turn out as precise this way, but maybe it gives him more freedom to develop his writing in his own way.

Some problems that we've encountered along the way have been that he doesn't have enough space to write (I often ask him to sign his name to a birthday card and he just can't fit it all in) so I do try to give him a large enough piece of paper and encourage him to start at the far left of the page. He also gets quite frustrated and discouraged if he writes a letter incorrectly or starts wrong. At this point I'm not correcting anything or giving him an eraser to rub out his mistakes as I think that he just needs to keep going and not be held back by his errors at this point. If he gets frustrated we take a break and do some letter writing in the air, clap hands and wiggle fingers to get the muscles working or just change activities altogether. He is going to love writing, but I know now that I can't rush things...maybe I'll have to wait until he's 4 before he writes his first masterpiece, ha ha!

1 year old

A House to Play In - Ivy's Starry Bedroom

07:30

We have been in our new house for just over a month now, and things are really starting to come together. We made sure that the children's rooms were set up straight away, but it has taken a little while to get them fully decorated and organised with all of their toys. Here's a sneak peek of Ivy's room, I'm sure that there are more changes to come but she's having fun playing in it already.

Her new room has a lot of the same decor as Ivy's First Bedroom but it is at least double the size, so there's lots of room to play now. Some new additions are the name bunting that I picked up at a local garden centre and a few other keepsakes that we didn't have room for in her old room.

Even though Ivy is still sleeping in her cot we have bought a single bed for her room for when she's older (and for me to sleep in when she's having a bad night!) It will also be the guest bed, so we went for a trundle bed for extra sleeping space. I chose some plain purple bedding (although I did find some cute starry sheets at Asda) and got the comfiest premium pillows from Warren Evans. Whoever sleeps in this bed is going to have a great nights sleep with these fab pillows! I also put up some new lettering wall stickers and this cute hair bow holder that Ivy's Nana made for her.

The newest addition to Ivy's room is this big wardrobe from Ikea that we just put together. It's great because it fits all of her little dresses and has plenty of shelves with room for lots and lots of toys! It's so easy to just open up the door and let Ivy choose which toys she wants to play with, and there's loads of space on the floor for her to set up all of her little houses and cars to play with. She loves to stand with the door open and point to the toys that she wants me to get for her (I have to hold her back from trying to climb the shelves and get them herself!)

Ivy's also got this adorable little HelloHome StarBright Storage Unit and bookshelf from World's Apart. It's shaped like a little cloud and just goes perfectly in Ivy's room. There's room on the top for books and three little drawers that pull out for toys, perfect for all of Ivy's dolls and their accessories. She spends most of the time in her room pulling books off the shelf and sitting flipping through the pages, it's definitely her favourite piece of furniture.

It's just a start but at least we have Ivy's bedroom nearly finished, hopefully I'll be able to show you Ethan's bedroom, the main play area and the garden soon!

* This is a review post, we were given the pillows from Warren Evans and the bookshelf from World's Apart to try out and to write an honest review about, it also contains affiliate links.*

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