letter writing

Babyebi has had a thing about writing letters recently. He was very cute yesterday, he lined up all the dolls I have made and got his magnetic drawing board out and this is what he said/did
This doll's name is cuh (writes c)
this dolls name is oh (writes o)
this dolls name is tuh (write t)
and continues until all the dolls have name and they are written down, I wish I could have got the video camea out!
I noticed that some of the letters he didn't write correctly, something I would like to nip in the bud, especially since he will go on to learn kanji and the brush stroke order is very important in kanji. So today we got out the sandpaper letters and the tub of salt glitter dregs out along with a cloth, bamboo brush and small tray. We poured salt into the tray and flattened it out using the bamboo brush.
I showed him what I wanted him to do, first take out a sandpaper letter, say what it is, write the letter with his fingers on the board, repeat what the letter is then place it above the salt tray. He then traced the letter in the salt. It was a big hit, he even asked to do it again in the afternoon. I am quite chuffed about this because I spent quite some time and effort making the sandpaper letters then when I finished he wasn't interested in them AT ALL even though he was interested in learning the letters (phonically). Now he is even putting letters together and trying to read them, he has got the concept just needs a bit more practice. Time to dig out the sight word cards - which I know I have somewhere from my teaching days.


Yesterday he had an arty flair and made this collage, it is on a triangular canvas, I'm not sure where it is going 'live' yet.

While he was being creative I whipped up another space cadet because Babyebi keeps nicking the other one out of the bag, it is supposed to be a present but he has taken a shine to it. I tried some different fabric, he is rather funkier than the last one but went down well with my little monkey this morning, they even had to have a nap together....