G is for Gabi

The other day while I was feeding Bella, Gabi was coloring. She put her hand on the paper and traced it beautifully. Later she turned the paper 180 degrees and traced it again, on top of the first, so it is a bit hard to see what a fantastic job she did. (She calls these hand tracings "handprints.")

Then she amazed me even more by writing the letter I and showing it to me. Her second letter I had the crossbars a bit off, but still a very good job. After that, she announced that she was going to write the letter E, and she did. I praised her with enough excitement that she then wrote two more Es and also a G and an O. I had no idea that she could write letters on her own, as I'd only seen her trace letters. Can you find all that in the picture below?


Gabi's letters and "handprints"

FYI, in learning to trace hands, the first step (at least for Gabi) was drawing a line between each finger -- just one line (separating the fingers), not two lines (one along the side of each finger). Then she added a line across the base of the palm after she removed the traced hand from the paper (since you can't trace that part because your wrist/arm is in the way). Gabi had a tendency to miss the curve at the fingertips. Note that these "handprints" are full hands, though! In addition, Gabi has been "writing words" by drawing a bunch of short vertical lines. You can see some examples in this picture.

Another day, Gabi decided to write her name. She wrote a G in the corner, and then an A next to it. Her B is really more of a backwards D. When we were tracing letters, she wanted to trace the outline of the B (which is kind of like a D) and then go back and add the middle line as an after-thought. She wrote an I and then used a different color to "dot" the i. It might not be legible just yet, but for a three-year-old only two-and-a-half months after her third birthday, it is excellent. (I think I ought to have rotated this picture 180 degrees -- here the A is upside-down and the word is spelled in reverse, but I think the G is actually the letter she wrote upside-down and she spelled it in order.)


GABI

I highly recommend clicking on the above images to see the larger versions.

Gabi has been able to spell her own name and give us the first letter of other words for awhile. Now she is very interested in spelling more words, especially names. She sounded out and spelled "Bella" and "Mommy" and "Daddy" (with a little help -- when to double the letters, a clue that Mommy doesn't end in an i like Gabi, and a sound-alteration for the a in Bella). Gabi is so smart!


I did want to add that my parents are awesome. Mom volunteered to drive five hours to Little Rock sometime during the first two weeks of June to paint our new house for us before we replace the carpet, and Dad offered to spend his 4th of July helping me replace the kitchen sink.