My Little Reader Update

My son is suddenly into numbers! I'm trying to figure out where that started... I think it was a combination of some counting books he's been enjoying lately, and some counting puzzles he's been playing with a lot. I think it began with these:

(They're supposed to be hands and feet. I know, I know, they are very weird looking feet, and backwards hands. What are ya gonna do?)

I've been helping him put these together and as I help him I say, "Number three goes here... Number seven goes here..."

So now he's intrigued by these things called "numbers!" He'll ask for numbers now: "mumbers, mumbers!" I'm never exactly sure what he wants when he asks for numbers, but one of his counting books, or number puzzles usually appeases him.

The only problem with all this fascination with numbers now is that he thinks letters are numbers too. We're working on that. It's made for good teachable moments.

Tonight we did a counting book/number puzzle play combo. I could see his wheels turning as I held the puzzle pieces up to the corresponding numbers in his counting book.

The counting books we've been reading lately are:

• Richard Scarry's Best Counting Book (Richard Scarry)
• Ten, Nine, Eight (Molly Bang)
• Charlie and Lola's Numbers (Lauren Child)
• Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes (Mem Fox)

He also likes Zoe's Sheep (Rose Bursik), but he hasn't been reading it much lately.