Child development logs: Linnea age 5½
Oct. 14th, 2009 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ailbheLinnea
5 years 6 months (almost)
21kg approx, 112 cm high
Shoe size: 11.5H
Self-care at home
Eating: Linnea can and does get her own breakfast cereal, bread and spread or sandwiches, fruit (including washing it at the kitchen sink, using a step), and all the icing off the cake in the caketin, half a packet of biscuits in one go, the very tips of the strawberries and put the rest back in the punnet, etc. She can't quite peel an orange or satsuma on her own yet but can manage bananas ok. She doesn't leave much mess on the tablecloth after meals but sometimes uses her fingers when eating - more now than a few weeks ago, in fact.
Dressing: She sometimes dresses herself and can manage buttons, zips, and dungaree-buckles. I think socks might be the trickiest bit.
Toileting: She can use the toilet herself but her wiping is variable. She usually leaves the toilet fairly clean and washes her hands with soap. She has pretty much stopped wetting the bed and uses a potty in her bedroom at night.
Washing: She can wash, rinse and dry her hands effectively, including washing her nails. She washes her body but not her hair in the bath. She can wash her face but usually doesn't see the point. She can climb into and out of the bath alone and it is safe to leave her alone in the bath if the door is open and I can hear her. She brushes her own teeth but still has a grown up finish. It may turn into a grown up check after she's six but I'm no longer sure of this.
She doesn't brush her own hair at all any more, not sure why.
Helping at home
Linnea can lay the table except for the things she can't fetch even using a step. She thinks she can carry a teapot and pour for people but I don't believe her (those things are hot!) She can mix cakes, knead bread (genuinely helpfully) and chop things with sharp knives - she peels and chops garlic for Rob, and can cut bread. She can also stir things on the cooker with a wooden spoon, if she has a step and the sides of the pot aren't too high.
She knows how the dishwasher and washing machine work but rarely wants to use them. She does make her own bed in the mornings, at least sometimes. She can sort through piles of things when we're tidying up, choosing "trash or treasure."
Linnea has gone from helping Emer to telling her what to do. Ho hum.
When running errands, she opens doors, fetches things from shelves, pushes the button to cross the road, loads the trolley or basket, unloads it onto the conveyor belt at the checkout, all that stuff.
Playing at home
Linnea likes role-play games where she decides who does what and when and how and where. This isn't always as popular as you might imagine. She plays kitchens and shops and schools and doctors and superheroes and trains and modelling and lego and k'nex and running through the whole house very fast over and over and bouncing on the beds and using the computer for CBeebies and the Lego website and maths things and the television with the digital-tv-broadcast games (push the red button) and DVDs and board games - board games are kind of newish, the way she's doing them now.
Playing outside the home
She seems to be reducing her circle of friends and changing the way she deals with them. She likes to write letters and meet people, but the intensity is easing off, and she's much happier now, much less stressed by her friendships. Some of this might be because some of her friends are making other friends themselves, perhaps.
Walking, running, climbing, balancing, dancing, swinging, cycling, scootering all proceed as normal.
We haven't been swimming for ages.
Listening and talking
She listens when she wants to, not when she doesn't. Most people understand her all of the time. All people understand her most of the time. She gets extremely frustrated when she can't express her thoughts accurately - often she can't verbalise a visual thought and gets very upset.
Reading and writing
Linnea has admitted that she might be able to read a bit. She's working through some Peter and Jane Ladybird books cautiously. She doesn't like reading aloud anything she's not totally sure of, which is something these incredibly simple, not terribly interesting books help with - there's not much at stake. She is surprised by how much she can read and even a little pleased about it.
She can write all the letters of the alphabet but not always remember their names. She can write her own name, and Emer's, and some other small important words. She often makes letters, cards and postcards for other people.
Drawing and making
Her drawing is still very good, though less beautiful as she tries harder to reproduce exactly what she had in mind - the less developed stuff was more impressionist which was prettier to look at. She makes very precise playdough and plasticine models and strange things from Fimo. She doesn't like sewing but was quite good at it. She has a huge craft project planned which will be photographed if it ever gets that far.
Counting and manipulating numbers
She understands the symbols +, -, <, > and =. She's kind of suspicious of × and ÷. She can count pretty high and add up and subtract when she needs to; she can multiply and divide a bit, but we don't know how much. She has been slightly interested in a set of maths puzzles we printed off the internet for her; identifying a pattern and continuing it appeals to her.
Sleep
Bed at bedtime, up in the morning. No probs.
Social
From having more friends she claimed to love madly than loved her, to having more friends who relied on her to be their best friends than she actually liked, she has gone to a small number of friends she really enjoys. I think she's not keen on children playing in large groups much.
She has adult friends and considers some small babies her friends, too.
She can handle her own pocketmoney in shops, ask for things, ask for the options and make a choice, pay, wait for change, etc. She can pay her own busfare but the novelty wore off quickly so usually she dashes on upstairs while I pay.
She has some idea now of washing one's face and so on before going to visit people or before they come to visit us, and I know (from her remark in someone else's house, oops) that she thinks it's polite to tidy up a bit before visitors come in. So there's definitely some development of consideration for others before the event, rather than empathising during or after, in there.
Formal manners
She is pretty good at please, thank you, and sorry-for-specific-thing. She's good at beginning to speak to new people and asking people for things - excuse me, please can I get the book behind you, that sort of thing. She offers toys to child guests and tea or snacks to adults, and when we have people to dinner she asks them if they'd like to finish the prized item before taking it herself (at least until she gets to know them). She still clears away in cafés and so on.
Other stuff people notice about small children
She is getting the days of the week through osmosis and starting on months. She has a fair idea of what a year is. She loves the Natural History Museum in Oxford and remembered fairly clearly what was where after almost a year's absence. She's not impressed that they are real and not models, though - it makes her want to cry (but she doesn't).
She is less reserved and distant than she was three months ago and more inclined to tell me what she's thinking. She's also more inclined to allow me to read to her. She really, really likes to watch television with us and tell us what's happening while it's on screen, which is irritating but sometimes we indulge her anyway.
5 years 6 months (almost)
21kg approx, 112 cm high
Shoe size: 11.5H
Self-care at home
Eating: Linnea can and does get her own breakfast cereal, bread and spread or sandwiches, fruit (including washing it at the kitchen sink, using a step), and all the icing off the cake in the caketin, half a packet of biscuits in one go, the very tips of the strawberries and put the rest back in the punnet, etc. She can't quite peel an orange or satsuma on her own yet but can manage bananas ok. She doesn't leave much mess on the tablecloth after meals but sometimes uses her fingers when eating - more now than a few weeks ago, in fact.
Dressing: She sometimes dresses herself and can manage buttons, zips, and dungaree-buckles. I think socks might be the trickiest bit.
Toileting: She can use the toilet herself but her wiping is variable. She usually leaves the toilet fairly clean and washes her hands with soap. She has pretty much stopped wetting the bed and uses a potty in her bedroom at night.
Washing: She can wash, rinse and dry her hands effectively, including washing her nails. She washes her body but not her hair in the bath. She can wash her face but usually doesn't see the point. She can climb into and out of the bath alone and it is safe to leave her alone in the bath if the door is open and I can hear her. She brushes her own teeth but still has a grown up finish. It may turn into a grown up check after she's six but I'm no longer sure of this.
She doesn't brush her own hair at all any more, not sure why.
Helping at home
Linnea can lay the table except for the things she can't fetch even using a step. She thinks she can carry a teapot and pour for people but I don't believe her (those things are hot!) She can mix cakes, knead bread (genuinely helpfully) and chop things with sharp knives - she peels and chops garlic for Rob, and can cut bread. She can also stir things on the cooker with a wooden spoon, if she has a step and the sides of the pot aren't too high.
She knows how the dishwasher and washing machine work but rarely wants to use them. She does make her own bed in the mornings, at least sometimes. She can sort through piles of things when we're tidying up, choosing "trash or treasure."
Linnea has gone from helping Emer to telling her what to do. Ho hum.
When running errands, she opens doors, fetches things from shelves, pushes the button to cross the road, loads the trolley or basket, unloads it onto the conveyor belt at the checkout, all that stuff.
Playing at home
Linnea likes role-play games where she decides who does what and when and how and where. This isn't always as popular as you might imagine. She plays kitchens and shops and schools and doctors and superheroes and trains and modelling and lego and k'nex and running through the whole house very fast over and over and bouncing on the beds and using the computer for CBeebies and the Lego website and maths things and the television with the digital-tv-broadcast games (push the red button) and DVDs and board games - board games are kind of newish, the way she's doing them now.
Playing outside the home
She seems to be reducing her circle of friends and changing the way she deals with them. She likes to write letters and meet people, but the intensity is easing off, and she's much happier now, much less stressed by her friendships. Some of this might be because some of her friends are making other friends themselves, perhaps.
Walking, running, climbing, balancing, dancing, swinging, cycling, scootering all proceed as normal.
We haven't been swimming for ages.
Listening and talking
She listens when she wants to, not when she doesn't. Most people understand her all of the time. All people understand her most of the time. She gets extremely frustrated when she can't express her thoughts accurately - often she can't verbalise a visual thought and gets very upset.
Reading and writing
Linnea has admitted that she might be able to read a bit. She's working through some Peter and Jane Ladybird books cautiously. She doesn't like reading aloud anything she's not totally sure of, which is something these incredibly simple, not terribly interesting books help with - there's not much at stake. She is surprised by how much she can read and even a little pleased about it.
She can write all the letters of the alphabet but not always remember their names. She can write her own name, and Emer's, and some other small important words. She often makes letters, cards and postcards for other people.
Drawing and making
Her drawing is still very good, though less beautiful as she tries harder to reproduce exactly what she had in mind - the less developed stuff was more impressionist which was prettier to look at. She makes very precise playdough and plasticine models and strange things from Fimo. She doesn't like sewing but was quite good at it. She has a huge craft project planned which will be photographed if it ever gets that far.
Counting and manipulating numbers
She understands the symbols +, -, <, > and =. She's kind of suspicious of × and ÷. She can count pretty high and add up and subtract when she needs to; she can multiply and divide a bit, but we don't know how much. She has been slightly interested in a set of maths puzzles we printed off the internet for her; identifying a pattern and continuing it appeals to her.
Sleep
Bed at bedtime, up in the morning. No probs.
Social
From having more friends she claimed to love madly than loved her, to having more friends who relied on her to be their best friends than she actually liked, she has gone to a small number of friends she really enjoys. I think she's not keen on children playing in large groups much.
She has adult friends and considers some small babies her friends, too.
She can handle her own pocketmoney in shops, ask for things, ask for the options and make a choice, pay, wait for change, etc. She can pay her own busfare but the novelty wore off quickly so usually she dashes on upstairs while I pay.
She has some idea now of washing one's face and so on before going to visit people or before they come to visit us, and I know (from her remark in someone else's house, oops) that she thinks it's polite to tidy up a bit before visitors come in. So there's definitely some development of consideration for others before the event, rather than empathising during or after, in there.
Formal manners
She is pretty good at please, thank you, and sorry-for-specific-thing. She's good at beginning to speak to new people and asking people for things - excuse me, please can I get the book behind you, that sort of thing. She offers toys to child guests and tea or snacks to adults, and when we have people to dinner she asks them if they'd like to finish the prized item before taking it herself (at least until she gets to know them). She still clears away in cafés and so on.
Other stuff people notice about small children
She is getting the days of the week through osmosis and starting on months. She has a fair idea of what a year is. She loves the Natural History Museum in Oxford and remembered fairly clearly what was where after almost a year's absence. She's not impressed that they are real and not models, though - it makes her want to cry (but she doesn't).
She is less reserved and distant than she was three months ago and more inclined to tell me what she's thinking. She's also more inclined to allow me to read to her. She really, really likes to watch television with us and tell us what's happening while it's on screen, which is irritating but sometimes we indulge her anyway.