[imported from livejournal and backdated]
Pocket money and birthday cards.
And that's just two of an
infinite number of possibilities. Tao has recently started writing the
names of his friends from !school group on the backs of envelopes. It
all started with the first birthday party of one of them a couple of
months ago, in which both Tao and Ruan, with a little help from me,
wrote "Happy Birthday from [their name]" on a piece of paper, decorated
it, and then stuck it into a similarly decorated envelope, and wrote the
child's name on the front.
Perhaps the time spent on Reading Eggs
paid off, Tao only had to be told what the letters were to spell the
name in question, though he needed some reminders of a couple of
letters, and he wrote it himself. Ruan, I guided her hand in the
writing.
After that, they spent some time at various points in
the following days writing the same child's name on the backs of
envelopes. Then Tao graduated onto the child's sibling, working out how
that name was spelled on his own. Then he asked Josh how to spell the
name of one of his other friends. Josh didn't actually know but
hazarded a guess.
Tao also knows his name backwards is "oat".
Ruan knows the letters in her name, just needs to get them in the right order.
On
the numeracy front, Tao's always been pretty decent with numbers. He's
been given money, usually Josh and other relatives chipping him change,
and has over time amassed a collection of shrapnel in his piggybank.
His latest interest, he's been wanting a sonic screwdriver,
and kept demanding when we could go to the ABC Shop to look for one. I
told him as I'd told him many other times he could use his own money.
So he went to his piggybank and started bringing me handfuls of coins.
We counted the coins with me flashing very quickly through how many of
each denomination make a dollar and then adding up dollars. Eventually
we ended up with $19.05. I told him he probably needed another $10.
He came back with a 10c coin. I reiterated needing ten DOLLARS. A
while later I heard him rummaging through his piggybank. Eventually he
returned with 5x $2 coins, having remembered that 5x2 = 10.
It's a start. Or probably more accurately a continuation. Can never really tell.