Saturday, February 26, 2011

100 words

I've been feeling sorry for Jason lately because I know he's trying to tell me things, but he just doesn't have the language.  I'm not worried about him, I don't think he has a language delay... I just feel so bad for him when all he can do is grunt or cry.

He has a few words under his belt, and it definitely has made it easier on Peter and I when the little man starts screaming.  So my mission this past week was to try to figure out what I could do to help him.

I bought a bunch of books...  Baby's 100 First Words, Colors, Shapes, Animals... blah, blah, blah.  I then thought of back when I was teaching first grade... we used environmental print to make struggling readers feel like they could read.  Everyone knows that this:

 says McDonalds, this:
 says Target, and this:
says delcious!  I mean, Reese's.

I remember making flashcards so we could make games and use them in projects and helped those kiddos feel confident in their reading abilities.

So, using that idea as my guide, I walked around each room of our house, and made a list of the 100 things that Jason breaks gets into touches uses everyday.


Here's the photo stream on Flickr:  click me to see all the words and pictures!  You'll notice that I only posted 98 pictures... I didn't have any oatmeal or avocados in the house and downloaded those to make my final hundred.

Next, I uploaded the pictures to Walgreens, and I'm going wait for a sale on 100 pictures and print them out in 4x6's.  Also, I made little return address labels with the word so I can stick the word on each picture.  Then I'm going to put all the pics in a cheap album, and go over it with Jason.  I can see flipping through, asking him to find the objects, making a scavenger hunt when he's older, etc...

Hopefully, he'll learn something from the project.  I'm thinking of doing another book of pictures of our family, especially the aunts, uncles, cousins, etc... who live out of town so when we go to see them their faces will look familiar.

The project was easy, anyone with a camera could do it, it easily can be personalized for your child, and was about the same price as a nicer "Baby's 100 Words" book!  Please feel free to steal photos or the idea for your little one.

2 comments: