My Days . . . My Pictures

Elisabeth received a brilliant gift for Christmas called My Days . . . My Pictures. It is a small spiral-bound drawing pad that has a prompt for each day of the year, such as: Draw a picture of yourself. Not only is it fun because there is something new to do every day, but parents can see incremental progress over the course of weeks, months and the entire year. We have noticed changes just within the first eleven days of using it (a great witness to the power of practice!).

One of the prompts in the first week was Draw your Dad. Elisabeth has decided that all the people she draws need to have either a pony tail (on top in a bunch) or pig tails. So, notwithstanding the fact that I don't have long hair, Elisabeth announced:

"I'm drawing Daddy with pigtails!"

I expressed my consternation, and Elisabeth changed her course:

"I'm giving Daddy dreads!"

I hope that the pictures of me eleven months from now will be a closer approximation of my actual appearance.

Connectogons

Elisabeth received a set of "connectogons" for Christmas, which she loves. I've tried to find them online and can't find them at all. Has anyone else heard of them? They're fantastic!

A perfect gift

On the day that we moved, Elisabeth's best friend's parents took care of her for the day and fed us an outstanding leg of lamb for dinner. What could have been an enormously stressful day turned out to be fun for everyone involved - thanks to great friends.

As we parted to go to our new home, Aidan's mom gave Elisabeth a TykeLight, a very clever nightlight for children that charges by magnetism, casts warm glow, and doesn't get dangerously hot.

It was a perfect gift, as Elisabeth's new bedroom does not have an overhead light, and we had not yet found the lamps from the boxes. She cuddled it to sleep that night, and has done the same on many subsequent nights. What a great gift!

Pattern Puzzle

I have purchased several puzzles from The Learning Journey for Elisabeth, and as gifts for friends. Recently I picked up their Patterns puzzle, aware that this was one area that Elisabeth wasn't picking up on very quickly. We started playing with it about a month ago, and she now clearly understands patterns. (That doesn't mean she always matches them immediately, but conceptually she understands what a repeating pattern is, and what the task is to complete a sequence.)

For anyone looking for developmentally appropriate toys for a 3 year old, this one is fantastic for learning patterns!

Giant Sticker Activity Workbook

This sticker book is Elisabeth's favorite activity right now. It has over 600 reusable stickers with glossy pages. The book covers numbers, letters, colors, animals, vehicles, and even has some dot-to-dot pages. About 400 of the stickers have a "home" on one of the glossy pages, so each sticker is an occasion to hunt through the book for the appropriate color, letter, number, etc.

At first, Elisabeth was just fascinated by the sheer number of stickers, but within a week or so she learned to take out one sticker and search for the place where it belongs. We have spent hours on buses and trains doing it together, and she happily does it by herself on the couch or in the stroller. I highly recommend this book for this stage of development!

Crayola Twistable Slick Stix

If you want to see the most vivid crayons ever, here they are! Since they're so oily (which is why they're called "slick"), they are harder to get off of things other than the intended paper target.

However, in a controlled environment, I think Crayola Slick Stix are the best crayons I've seen! (Elisabeth loves them.)

Why toy/book/stuff recommendations?

Why offer recommendations of toys, books and kid gear? For some, this question may never occur; this is a blog, and the blogger can do whatever s/he wants with it.

As a Christian, I think it is a valid question. Why recommend things that can't satisfy? If our hearts naturally incline to be satisfied with anything but God, then why add my recommendation to things that I know will not satisfy?

First, why recommend things that can't satisfy?
I am indebted to C.S. Lewis for the answer.

But the most obvious fact about praise-whether of God or any thing-strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise-lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game-praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least.…

I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: "Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent?"

Lewis' point is that praise is inherent to our nature. The question is not whether we do it, but of what we do it. We praise those things that we esteem, that we consider worthy of praise, worthy of being admired and trusted by others. For this reason, I don't hesitate to recommend toys, books and gear that are durable, well-made, clever, etc. Just as Lewis says, I spontaneously praise what I value. If things were all that I praised, or what I praised most highly, then I would be in great danger of leading others to trust and delight in things beyond the measure that they are worthy to be trusted and enjoyed. Which leads me to answer the second question.

If our hearts naturally incline to be satisfied with anything but God, then why add my recommendation to things that I know will not satisfy?
Again, I rely on Lewis:

The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value.

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. (C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958, pp. 93-95) [I found this selection online here.]

I am not going to deny myself or others "what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing" by saying, "I will only praise God." Rather, I need to be clear that those things that I commend while surpassing their peers, and bringing me pleasure, are nothing next to the supreme worthiness of God in Christ. This is why Jesus' words, "Whoever does not renounce everything he has cannot be my disciple," are not burdensome. It is like trading a Kia for a Porsche. Only the idiot is going to cast a second glance at the Kia. Praise can be appropriate of both Kia and a Porsche, but there is no comparison between the two.

Given the reality that Christ is more worthy to be trusted and admired than anything, there are two other respects in which recommending things can be helpful, I think:

1. Value is upheld. God is not honored by those who sell a junky product or service, nor by those who consider junk to be of good quality. Giving our business to those who deserve it strengthens those companies that truly provide value - and nudges inferior companies to improve, or go out of business.
2. Things can lift our eyes to Christ. I think that this is most clear with music and literature. They can be a vehicle to help us see Christ more clearly and love Him more.

As human beings, we will praise. The question, I think, is whether our praise is in proportion to the worthiness of the object.

Candyland

For Christmas, Elisabeth was given the Dora Edition of Candyland (which includes a Dora Memory Game). The first time we tried playing, she didn't understand it at all, got bored with it and walked away.

After 2 more attempts, she got it, and just now she beat me in our first complete game! It is amazing to watch how quickly kids learn through simple exposure.

Telling Time

The time has come to learn how to read an analog clock. We've been using a book with a built in clockface (which isn't good literature at all, but is useful for the little clockface). So now Elisabeth can tell time to the hour, and can move the hands to show any "o'clock."

We were given the Melissa & Doug clock some time ago. At that time, it was great for learning numbers and shapes; now it is going to be great for learning how to read the minute hand.

The hour and minute hands are significantly different in length, and are different colors. (Believe it or not, a lot of clocks designed to teach kids time have hour and minute hands that are remarkably similar in length and the same color.) Around the perimeter, the hour numbers are printed, and just inside those marks, the minutes are indicated.

In addition to excellent design (apart from making the 5 a hexagon and the 6 a pentagon . . .), the clock is solid and durable, made of wood. I highly recommend it!

Smart Squares

Elisabeth was given Scholastic's Smart Squares for Christmas, and I'm quite impressed.

Included are 30 game cards that slide into a plastic display. Each card has two rows of six squares. The goal is for the child to match a square in the top row with one in the bottom row. The child shows the match by placing a removable colored frame around the square in the second row, repeating the process with the remaining colors until all six matches are made. Then the child can self check by pulling down the blue slide (the light blue part at the bottom) to reveal six colored squares. If the colored frames correspond to the colored squares, the answers are correct.

What I like in particular is that the game cards are diverse and scaffolded. The cards include the following skills:

• Uppercase alphabet recognition
• Lowercase alphabet recognition
• Beginning (onset) sounds
• Rhyming sounds
• Colors
• Patterns
• Numbers
• Counting 0–10
• Geometry (shapes, relative size)

As Elisabeth builds confidence with the easier ones (matching colors, for example) she gains courage to try out new ones that she wouldn't otherwise have tried.

Here is another great toy without batteries!

Play-Doh Bucket of Fun

Elisabeth received another great gift for her birthday: The Play-Doh duffle bag! Not only does it have fun tools (scissors, garlic-style press, etc.) but it comes in a great storage bag, so that you don't have play-doh pieces everywhere. Elisabeth loves it - and I like that it is self-contained.

Melissa & Doug floor puzzles

Among the many great gifts that Elisabeth received for her birthday is the Melissa & Doug Beginning Skills floor puzzle. In one box are four puzzles: (1) alphabet (2) numbers 1-10 (3) colors (4) shapes. Each puzzle has twelve large, sturdy pieces - to my mind a perfect number for a just-3 year old. Any more and she might be intimidated by the task.

How do they package 4 puzzles in one box without confusing the pieces? They put simple shape patterns on the back of the puzzle pieces. One puzzle has circles, another squares, another triangles, and another rhombuses. So Elisabeth can sort them all by herself!

I've been a fan of Melissa & Doug for a long time for their quality and durability. Now I'm further impressed with their clever, simple design! Thanks, Mike and Lauren!

Brain Quest

Elisabeth was given Brain Quest for 3s and 4s, and she loves it. In doing it again yesterday with her, I was reminded of why I like it. Not only does it reinforce developmentally appropriate skills, but through repetition, it shows me which skills she doesn't yet have - so that I can work on that more deliberately.

An outstanding toy - for parents and kids.

That's the kind of toy I like!

We just got a new (used) toy that exemplifies a category of toys that I love. I gravitate toward toys that encourage creativity, that have multiple outcomes, and that require critical thinking.

I have a Granddaddy to thank for that, who not only loved such toys, but also invented them. He had that inventive, creative spirit that was not content just to play with other people's creative toys, but to design his own . . . for the grandkids!