This week’s Literacy Tuesday was a lesson for Mommy. We did all of our usual daily literacy activities but I thought we could try playdough letters this week.  While the girls were having their quiet time I made a batch of fresh playdough.  I even let the girls pick the colours: red for Kaitlyn and yellow for Eileen.  After quiet time I suggested we all go to the kitchen table to make letters with playdough. Kaitlyn had a complete meltdown – “Mommy I don’t want to – it is too hard”.  I was stunned, I thought she loved playdough!  She had just told me a couple of days ago that she was making letters in library class with plasticine, but that ended up being the problem.  She didn’t want my playdough she wanted plasticine. I decided to let it drop and let the girls have some free play time.  An hour later Kaitlyn asked me if she could just play with the playdough so I set her up at the table and Eileen and I joined her.  I borrowed some of Eileen’s playdough and started writing “Mommy”, and helped Eileen write her name.  Kaitlyn asked if she could write words other than her name and ofcourse  I said yes. The result was the following:

She even added her name.

What did I learn – I need to give my kids lots of opportunities but I need to resist the urge to force them to use them.  They learn so much more when the chose to explore themselves.  Now I just need to find a way to apply this to Kaitlyn’s music practicing so that she still gets in her 5 practices a week.