Though it's not always fun for us, we've been making an effort to scale back the amount of screen time all of our boys have. If you let them, all three of them would spend the whole day camped out either in front of the big screen or playing games on the computer. We're trying really hard not to let them.
In the mornings, we do use the screen to buy ourselves some extra sleep (let's call it rest, since we're not really sleeping through all that noise). PBS Kids, dry cereal and a sippy cup of milk is how our boys start the day. It usually amounts to two or three half hour shows, depending on when Josh leaves for work and how early he lets them out of their rooms. But for the rest of the day, I try to limit myself to just one DVD, usually on the nights when I'm trying to get dinner ready. Sometimes, if we haven't done anything since the morning, I will either let Connor play video games (the twins will always come watch) or I will help the twins play (they have touch-screens at school, which we will probably end up investing in here at home sometime soon).
Today was one of those days where we hadn't watched anything since SuperWhy before school. We'd already taken our neighborhood walker, shorter these days with the cooler temperatures, and we had a few hours before Josh would be home from work. I thought I would treat the twins to some computer time. We played their favorite game, "Dog's Letter Pit" on PBSKids.
We played and played. And played.
And I learned something about one of my twins that I didn't know. Xander not only knows all of his letters (this I did know), but he also knows his letters by the sound they make. You see, the game prompts you to spell the word by the sound that each letter makes. At first, I was just doing them for the boys, waiting to let them hear the sound and then slowly rolling over each letter (it will make the sound of each letter as you do that, so you can match it to the one that was prompted). As I kept doing this, I noticed that Xander was pointing to the right letter on the screen every single time. So I started prompting him, asking him to tell me which letter made which sound. He would not only repeat the sound, but then say the appropriate letter.
He did so non-stop for about forty-five minutes. The only letters he mixed up were "K" and "Q" and "C" and "K," and each of those only one time. And he got both of them right on his second try.
Who knew? I'm sure he's been playing the game some at school, as I've given the site to both of the boys teachers as something that they enjoy watching and playing at home, but I had no idea. Xander really loves his letters.
And as an aside, I don't think I'm going to share this new accomplishment with Connor, who I think is a bit jealous already. Connor knows his letters, too, of course. But he can't spell words the way that Xander can. He's always asking me "What words starts with (word)?" After several repetitions of this phrase, I've finally come to understand that this is his way of asking how to spell a specific word. And he gets mad when Xander can spell some of them.
Three boys, each one very much his own.
