It is so fun to see the kids in our neighborhood grow up. It is so fun to see them understand puzzles and learn their alphabet and count to twenty! It is so fun to see them learn to share and learn to follow the rules. They are on holiday until November, so we have been having lots of play times in our house.
Some of them still struggle a bit with the puzzles 🙂
It has been so nice to see it go so well! They have learned not to write on the walls, so I don’t have to watch them like a hawk when they color. They have learned not to steal, so I don’t worry about every little toy and piece of candy and coloring book disappearing out the door. They have learned not to pass the curtains, so they don’t wander into our house. They have learned to ask to go the bathroom and get water, and they can go on their own without being supervised! They have learned to put a diaper on the littlest ones. They have learned to share! It was fun to have things go so smoothly.
Yaminoo and I have been playing Memory together for years, and she just this week started letting her little four-year-old brother, Lay Ta Oo, play with us. She started teaching him to turn over two cards and try to remember matches; she will help him and point out which ones to turn over.
One afternoon Lay Ta Oo came over and asked to play Memory just the two of us. We haven’t tried this before, but I agreed. He dumped out the cards and said he was ready to play. The first four matches he had laid out in front of him, so he got those pretty quickly. Then he began to actually remember them, and he was so proud!
It was really fun to see what he had observed. Since Yaminoo has taught him by pointing out matches for him, he began pointing out matches for me. And since I always cheer the kids on for finding matches and tell them they are smart, Lay Ta Oo would do the same! Each time I’d get a match he’d cheer for me and try to say “Yay!” and “Very good!” It was pretty adorable.
By the end of the week he’s gotten good enough that he’ll correct Yaminoo. She would try to point out a match to him, and he’d cross his arms and defiantly choose two other cards–also a match–and smile so proudly at himself! It’s such fun to see him grow up, and this felt like a little rite of passage. I see lots of fun Memory games ahead!
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