Neil at 3 5/12 - All About Words

Neil at 3 5/12 is all about words.  If he liked reading before, now he loves it.  Reading is easily the activity he spends the most time doing.  We've stacked up on books in recent months but it appears that we may need to get him new ones because he's memorized a lot of them.  His favorites lately are The Very Hungry Caterpillar, My Very Fist Bible and Chicka Chicka ABC.

We also got him a few Adarna titles and he likes Si Pilong Patago-tago and Figure This Out (a surprise hit picked up at the airport).

Just yesterday, he read all pages of Guess How Much I Love You.  He used to lose interest in between but not this time.=)

He also likes wordplay.

• Rhyming words.  We would say "what words rhyme with..." and then he would state the rhyming words.  He hits the mark on most of them but it's funny when he invents the words.
• First letter of words.  He also likes stating the first letters of words.  One time, I said 'big eyes" and he replied with "E is for eyes. B is for big."  Again, he gets most of them right and some wrong, like phonetically similar C and S, but that gives us an opportunity to teach him.
• Reading signs.  Neil has always been a good car passenger.  These days, car trips are more interesting for him because he reads street signs, etc.  We have a backseat commentator saying things like 'No U-Turn', 'No Loading and Unloading', etc. 

This is a really fun, learning-filled age for Neil but also comes with different challenges.  He exercises his will a lot more and so we need to focus on discipline a lot more as well.  We are blessed by this boy and we constantly pray to God for guidance in bringing him up.