jodified

Lately Gray and I have been spending some one on one time two days a week while both girls are in school. Sometimes we go for walks with our best friends, Angie and Kelsey, sometimes we run errands but in all the in-between times we play. And when we’re not running around, riding bikes on the back porch or playing catch we are playing his two favorite games.

Both of which I invented!

The first I made when Bailey was even younger than him and I’ve played it with all three kids. Even now I make up ways to get all three kids involved so the girls still enjoy it! It took some work to put together but it really was simple and anyone could do it!

All I did was buy a pack of animals at Michaels. I took a photo of each one on a dark background. I printed the photos and cut them into 4 inch squares. I backed them on colorful paper and wrote the name of the animal on the back (for when they can read). They all were laminated and I punched a hole in one corner. Then I put the animals in a baggie, punched a hole in the corner and put it all on a ring.

Then i lay the cards out (Gray is up to being able to do 6 cards at a time but the girls can do all of them easily now) and make up games. Right now for Grayson I lay out six cards and hand him an animal one by one to put down. As he gets better I will hand him all the animals and let him match them up. The girls favorite way to play is for me to lay all the cards on the coffee table and then hide the animals around the room. As they find the animals they have to match them up to the cards… they love this game!

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About a year and a half ago I dumped both our Scrabble pieces and our Boggle pieces into a container.

I keep it in the dining room art room so they can play with it at will and they take it down multiple times a week, sometimes together and sometimes alone. They like to fill the Boggle board with letters. Bailey likes to try to spell, “Mommy, what does this say?” Parker isn’t as interested in letters but will still play with them.

I honestly didn’t even think of taking it out for Gray because unfortunately he is still “the baby” around here. But that all changed the other day when we had finished the animal game and I asked him what else he wanted to play. I assumed he got up to go get a ball but instead he came back with this and said “help?”

So I opened it and he filled the holes with letters, we stacked letters and then I started reading the letters out loud.

And that’s when he started repeating them to me perfectly.

He’s talking more and more but this shocked me a bit.

So I laid out a Boggle letters (O) and said “O”. He repeated me. Then I handed him a Scrabble “O” and asked him to match the “O’s” which he did perfectly. So then I grabbed two Scrabble letters and asked him to find the “O” to match. He immediately grabbed the “O” and did it perfectly.

Next I started laying three letters out, with the matching letter in front and asked him to match by reading each letter first. He was perfect! So then I would mix up the letters, reading them each one by one, and ask him to match.

He never missed a beat! It was amazing to me!

Not only is this SO great for learning letters and matching like items, but the hand-eye coordination it took for him to lay these tiny pieces together is awesome.

I love inventing games with things we have around the house! And I LOVE watching my little baby become a big boy!

Gray… I am so proud of you! You are such a smart little man! I always think of you as this moving, throwing, running whirlwind but in truth, you have a very large attention span and truly enjoy learning! Thanks for hanging out with your Mommy this week!