Stubborness

Yup, Mark has a stubborn streak.  He forgot that Mommy has one as well.

Mark has apparently decided that since I won't prompt, he'll be lazy.  It's the most obvious in Word ID.  I'll ask for a word and he'll grab one.  Always the same spot first.  If it's not that one, then he'll try the next spot.  And then finally the third.  It happens in other activities, but to lesser degrees because there's just not the opportunities.

He wasn't happy today when I started addressing this.  First step was that he had to trace each word when he finally got it right.  Second step was that it went back into the pile to be done again.  He was definitely not happy.  I got yelled at.  And then he tried to run.  Then he learned that he was going to have to keep coming back to the table until he got through them all.  He got the last three words correct on the first try each.  We'll see if it's really sunk in tomorrow.

And we're working more on Handwriting.  Not that we haven't been working on it.  But I had to make some decisions regarding how we were going to do it.  The school was using Handwriting Without Tears.  And Mark was most clear on what he thought about that.  And he had become dependent on physical prompting again.  So we were back to working on the very, very basics.  He was coloring while making sure to hold the crayon correctly.  He was tracing the outline of shapes and trying to color inside the lines.  These tasks require a fine motor control that he's not real good at yet. 

Now that I have several fonts to do it with, I will start making prewriting worksheets again.  We are going to be using three lines for his writing guidelines.  This should make it easier for him.

A couple of days ago I added "building" letters with magnetic foam pieces.  I made a set of straights and curves to fit 2" letters.  We are starting with upper and lower case B.  He actually enjoys "building" the letters.  He's less enthusiastic about "building" the letter that he's asked for.  And even less enthusiastic about telling which letter is Big and which is Little.  He got mad at me today when I kept asking until he got it right.  (He kept trying to get me to take his hand.)

And another activity we've added is drawing the letter on his Fisher Price board.  I don't know what this thing is called but it's like the old crayon scratch boards except the roller can smooth it out again.  That's not so popular with him for the moment.  And not with me because I'm having to use physical prompting.  I'm going to brainstorm on it some more and see what ideas pop up.  If you have any ideas, please share.