My four year old always have problems with this concept. Lines? But why? And why do we have to color in them? And why are they only allowed to be drawn in certain ways? At least these are the questions that I ascribe to them. Frankly, I think the only thing they are think is:

"MWO?!"

Still, I was going to give in another try. After all, I can't write letters with them forever. So, I took out these little disks that we have in the giant math box of wonderful things and I gave them all disks.

I started out simple: I let them play with them. It was very difficult for me because it didn't look a lot like "I'm learning how to write letters in English". It looked a lot more like, "I am playing with tiny red disks and spilling them all over the floor." However, when I showed them how you can make lines, they all started to make lines. When I showed them how to make a circle, one little girl, who really had a hard time with this whole idea of pencil and pens and sitting in a chair, made a tiny little circle, just like mine, on her table. I gave her a sticker for it and all other kinds of circles starting popping up all over the table.

Then, I made a heart and hearts started to appear. I made an "A" and after a long while of staring and humming and hawing, a couple of "A"s appeared, too. "Booyah!" I thought. Lines and shapes!

I think that when I was four I just took things for granted and rarely questioned them. Then again, I don't really remember much about being four, except that I asked a boy at my preschool to marry me and he threw sand in my face.
» randomjunk on 2011-04-26 11:58:20

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