Cat/Dog

In the month that I haven't blogged, Elias has really picked up some mental velocity. He loves books, much more than I ever would have guessed he could at this age. Put him down to play amongst his toys, and it isn't long before he's settled on flipping through a book over and over. He will also bring me books, and once I start reading to him he really sees no reason for the show to ever stop.

For a while he was calling both cats and dogs "daw", but recently he can, sometimes, say "ca(t)" [with no T]. That's right, he's really starting to try to say the right words for objects. "Balloon" was one of the first. Last night he was sort of able to say "moon" during the nightly read. And he definitely recognizes these words (and many others) -- when I say "where's the moon?" his eyes go right to it on the page, and often he will point.

This is all in line with the Montessori point that a baby will seem to be making no progress at all for a given faculty, and then suddenly there is a significant ability manifests itself. Of course, what is happening is the mental processing takes place over days and weeks, as preparation and foundation for the eventual power, like a growing seed that is not noticed until it bursts out of the ground.

For this reason I'm quite glad to keep going over counting numbers with Elias. Some day soon I think it will pay off big, he will really get counting and numbers. And I expect it will help his other conceptual development, due to the interrelation between the Conceptual and the Mathematical.