What's MsI been up to?

She's just turned 3, but she figures she can do anything her big sisters can, and she so she does. She takes herself to the table anytime the girls do. She listens along to all our read-alouds, joins in all the art, pulls out a workbook when the others do.

Below she's playing with the island we made to go along with our read-aloud "My Father's Dragon." I should really add a dragon, but we haven't quite gotten to that part of the story yet. She helped make the clay animals, and loves play dough.

MsI likes to colour and doesn't leave any white space. It helps that she's always held her pencil correctly. She's got a big pre-school workbook and likes to trace the letters and numbers, although colouring in the pictures is her favorite part. She likes to use the whiteboard marker write and erase books. There's a math one she's quite fond of, technically it's MsE's, but MsI has taken it over.

She didn't get her own fish tank, but she has been closely watching the development of the other 3 tanks in our house. She loves to watch the fish swim around.

When I pulled out pastels the other day, MsI started by testing out all the colours in a row, then she asked me to draw her a fish. I drew us each a light outline. She chose to colour her fish on her own in a way very similar to mine. My only suggestion to her was did she want to add an eye and below is what she came up with. Then she drew a fish herself the next day in pencil. She wan't impressed with it, but I was. There's a white eye, stripes, the black fin and I'm pretty sure the black lines to the left are the tail. She's also drawn it in an aquarium.

When we played Geometry Bingo, she knew the names of 2-D shapes (circle, square, triangle...) and the repeated names of the 3-D shapes after us. MsI counts everything. She's working on getting her teen numbers straight.

MsI is an avid puzzle builder. The wood block ones for 3 to 4 year olds, like the abc's and number 0-9 are too simple for her. She still likes to do them, but finishes all 4 sets we have all at the same time and in just a few minutes. She can do the age 4+ floor puzzles by herself, and patiently shifts through the pieces till she finds 2 pieces to put together for our 6+ ones. She likes to do the older ones with another person, because they take a while even for me.

Another favorite puzzle problem of MsI's is our Fractions set. The circle or fraction line will not line up properly unless only equivalent fractions have been used. Sometimes she uses all the same colour like in the picture below - six 1/6th pieces make up the whole, but sometimes she will use the different colours patiently trying until the equivalent fractions match up.

She loves Lego Duplo sets and will use the the tiny lego too. Her play has become quite elaborate and usually includes dinosaurs, dragons, little people, and the bunnies or other little animal figures all together in some big scene usually with a house of some sort. We have to lie any animals left out on her play table down to go to sleep before MsI will get into bed at night.

MsI loves to bake and is eager to help put the groceries away when the Amazon Prime delivery arrives. She's the only person in the house who usually puts her things away. She doesn't like a messy room and knows where everything goes. Lately she's started dressing herself and will suddenly arrive in a new set of clothes if she gets her shirt wet.

MsI is her best friend. She's always asking her to "Come Play with Me." If MsE is too busy to respond, MsI has been known to physically push MsE down the hallway to play with her. They're almost the same weight, even though MsE is a head taller than her. MsE just laughs and goes along with it.

MsI's most common phrase is "What can I do?," which usually means no one has agreed to play with her. She has 4 different playmates in our house, so she really doesn't play alone that much. She also moans, "What can I do?" while she's trying to fall sleep at night.

She likes being read picture books and has started listening to the Disney Song and Story combos at night, that MsC was so fond of when she was little.

On the playground she is still wary of kids getting too close; That's a hang on from being told to stay arms length away from people during lock down. She won't play with any of the kids her age, but likes to chase after the 8 and 9 year olds her sisters play with on the playground. She's not as strong as she was before lockdown so she slips from the climbing vines more easily than before, but she goes out to play most afternoons and is fearless.

She's suddenly very into dinosaur names and surprises us with how many she knows. She loves to sing and is as likely to be heard singing a nursery rhyme, something from Disney's Frozen or a Korean Pop song. She likes to play the pre-school/early primary math and language arts games that MsE has, so I set her up with her own accounts.

MsI goes swimming every morning so she is a super solid swimmer. She likes to ride unicorns, even when they're upside down. We bought her a snorkel mask; she's too small for the breathing tube and fins, but she's figured out that she can float and look at the bottom of the pool for a long time.