When we know the kids "get it!"

 

 This morning, like all mornings- we had the centers set up to promote learning, exploration and skill building. Today, we observed a new accomplishment!

At the manipulative table we had rubber bands, along with hook boards. The children are encouraged to hook the bands onto one of the hooks, and create shapes. Usually at this age, the goal is the fine motor skill building, and we celebrate the child being able to simply get the rubber bands ON and STAY- without flicking off!

 As you can see in the pic above, most of the 3 year olds will simply try to put on as many rubber bands as they can, and are proud of that accomplishment.
Today, as i was sitting with Rachel- I could see she had mastered the skill of simply attaching the bands to the hooks, so I suggested she make a shape!

She chose to make the letter L.

What was so exciting, was on her own- after she saw she was able to make the letter L using 2 rubber bands, she walked over to our ABC chart- and found the corresponding letter L- to show me - "Look, its the same!"


It's truly rewarding when we are privy to see the learning being carried over into other areas of the children's world. I'm sure this happens all the time, but we don't always get to SEE IT!