One down, 25 to go

E knows the letter O. He handed me a block and said "O" and sure enough it had the letter O on it. Then he did it again. And a 3rd time. That time it was actually zero, but close enough.

The amazing thing is: he figured this out on his own, more or less. He has known about letters in general for awhile but when we tell him about specific letters we tend to concentrate on the "starter" letters like A, B, and C and E (for his name). O? What's the big deal about O?

Cheerios.

That's the big deal about O.

I admit, I'm guessing here but I think he's associated the shape of his cereal (which we call "Oh's" ) with the shape of the letter.

E is BIG on associations. During the Christmas season, if the word "tree" came up E would point in turn to all 4 trees in our living room/dining room, saying "tee" for each one. He does the same for pretty much each object we talk about. If we're upstairs reading about trains, he points toward the stairs and says "choo-choo" indicating that there are trains down there. Same for shapes (he refers to his shape puzzle and shape sorter). Same for animals, people, etc... Mention that he's a boy, he needs to tell you that Daddy is a boy too.

It's like watching the connections form in his brain.

One of his associations has me a bit perplexed. There is a picture of a wagon in his current favorite book. When we see it and I say "wagon" he taps on his head. We call that his noggin sometimes. So, either he is a future poet laureate (and it's about time we get one who thinks poems ought to rhyme) or he's a bit hard of hearing ... Or is this his sense of humor?

Besides O, the small boy can correctly identify the letter E on occasion and tonight he was pointing out J, K, and L (with some help). So, soon maybe E will be the one blogging here.