Originally Posted by minniemarx
When he was three, he'd lie on his bed for more than an hour at a go for about a week, chanting the alphabet slowly to himself. At the end of the week, he came down and said, "there are only five letters where I don't have to do anything with my lips or my teeth, and they are a, e, i, o, and u." Then he went happily out to play.
Love it!! When DS was about that age -- 3 or maybe 4 -- I babysat a friend of his two afternoons a week, and we would always bring a big bag of stuff to keep ourselves entertained while she took a nap. Generally we made a mess of their living room in various ways, and we always cleaned it up before the mom came home....

But one time we got completely carried away with little scraps of paper... He would come up with a letter sound and I'd write down the letter and he'd put it in a pile with the other sounds that were "made the same" -- b/p/m and s/z/t/d/n and k/g/ng/Russian-x/cat-hacking-up-hairball... and we just went on and on about how it all went together and why there wasn't a complete set of sounds at each location (voiced, unvoiced, fricatives, stops, whatever all the technical terms are that I can't remember anymore)... and we'd try to make the missing sounds (what kind of fricative can you get in the b/p/m set? and what does it sound like when you try?? LOL)

And then the kid's mom came home early and there we were lounging around in her living room surrounded by dozens of bits of paper with letters on them... Knowing her, I expect it was one of those things where she had read about the importance of coming home unexpectedly sometimes so you can find out if your babysitter is always watching TV or lets the preschoolers walk the dog down the highway unsupervised... I don't think she expected to catch the babysitter making apparently nonsensical piles of letters all over the living room rug. I think she always thought I was a weirdo anyway. wink

Erica