Putting (colored) Pencil to Paper

Emily has never really shown a lot of interest in coloring. She usually tires of it quickly and doesn't select it as an activity very readily. Maybe she never will have much of an interest but I decided the other day that maybe we just needed to sit and work with a purpose instead of what we have done in the past. I started with having her copy me - drawing circles (she has always done a million circles, more like ongoing spirals, but never just one), and lines in all directions. I wasn't too surprised to see that she was perfectly capable of everything I asked. Then we talked about drawing a person. A stick person. I talked about a head, the "body," the arms and the legs. She brought up the eyes and the hair (and since then has added ears to her list of required body parts). I think she did a pretty great job for her first attempt ever.

After the success of the person we moved on to her name. She has seen it written a thousand times, can tell you how to spell it, can recognize it, and has made little attempts to write it before but this time I encouraged her to look at every letter, how I formed it, and to copy me. Again, I think she did a pretty great job.

And something tells me that she will be doing this more and more. Especially because she showed me (after she brought out some paints to use) that she can reach the art cubbies that were meant to be out of reach.

Oh well.