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February 9, 2013

If You Give a Girl a Pencil...

I'll admit I was a little less than thrilled when our pediatrician gave the girls each a pencil after their four-year old check-up.  Visions of puncture wounds and lead poisoning...and return trips to the pediatrician...began dancing through my head.

They were so excited, though.  I told them we would play with their pencils -- TOGETHER -- at home.  I found a pencil sharpener (I was pretty proud of that find...it's probably been 10 years since I used it, at least!), and the girls watched with rapt attention as the shavings spiraled off and the point grew.

The girls got out their little notebooks that Aunt Alison sent them for their birthday, and they were set.

B wrote her name and drew a few pictures, but she soon wandered back to her crayons and coloring books.  Baby A has been a different story.

 

At times she's been near-obsessed with her pencil and notebook.

And what does she want to do???

She **might** be modeling after her mama, when she gets such a charge out of making lists.  :)

Many days, she asks for her pencil and gets out her notebook as I'm working in the kitchen.  She'll ask me, "How do you spell CABINET?"  I name the letters, one by one, often sounding them out and asking her to guess at what comes next.  She'll go on like this for 20 minutes sometimes!

I just got her notebook out to jot down a few of the words she's listed over the past couple of weeks.

GEORGE
OPEN
ELPHIE
MISHA
CHAIR
SCARF
SKY
RAISIN
CLOUD
HEART
CABINET
MOMMY
DADDY
PILLOW
FRIEND
NAPKIN
MACARONI
CARD
LIGHT
BULB
SASHA
KITTEN
FLOWER

I was amazed 1) that I could read most of them; and 2) at the insight into her stream of consciousness at the variety of words she asked to spell.

So I can only surmise...

...if you give a girl a pencil, she'll ask for a notebook, and then she'll start to make lists...and before you know it, she'll be making spreadsheets to keep track of her publishing prowess...if you give a girl a pencil.

Maybe the pediatrician wasn't so wrong after all.

4 comments:

Beth said...

My kids LOVE pencils!

I think they are just better for actual writing than crayons or anything else. For Christmas they got pencils and notebooks (they look like the same ones your girls have- my kids don't know who Hello Kitty is, they just call them their 'cat books') in their stockings and we have already had to buy new notebooks because they filled their first ones!
I recently had to take Paige to a long ENT appointment (recurring ear infections- poor thing.) Between seeing the nurse, the doctor and all of the tests, we were there for 3 1/2 hours- most of it waiting time! I had brought along her notebook and pencil and she was great the whole time. She wrote words (which I helped her spell), drew pictures and was happy as a clam the entire time!

Marcia (123 blog) said...

How bad am I? I never even considered pencils may be bad :) teehee

I did think they might press too hard on the thin ones so I still have them using the thicker ones which we all love!

Mandy, I just love the concentration on A's face and I want to see pics of the rest of your kitchen :)

Marcia (123 blog) said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

love it :)

our kids LOVE pencils. M will often get her pad and pencil and approach us to ask what we'd like to order!! ha!