Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Dylan the Artist

We have been saving Dylan's school art projects from day one and now have quite a large collection, which btw, I have no idea how to maintain. How do you store your kid's artwork? I think I will have to go buy a large plastic bin or box soon, before it takes over our basement!
Here is a sample from a coloring book he had at about 2-2 1/2 years old. (click on the photos to open bigger). I think I colored in the ice-cream cones but the rest is his work.

Looking through the coloring book I realized that he really liked coloring-in all the noses. Every nose was colored - in all the colors of the Crayola box! Funny.
He likes to pin point a certain thing and color it in, like Zoey's bracelet and hair bow (and nose, of course!)

Here is a current coloring book. Notice that he is really coloring in every square inch of the picture now.

He loves connect-the-dot the best. I couldn't find his connect-the-dot book (I think we might have left it at Nana B's house?). He is also a whiz at connect-the-dot on the computer. Loves all types of puzzles, coloring and other exercises on the computer and is really mastering the mouse now. He spends about an hour every night playing on the computer. (Is that too much? Let me know what the "healthy" amount of time is for a almost 4 year old).

And, if you would allow me another minute to brag, here is a sample of his handwriting.
He can write his name pretty well. Sometimes, he writes the letters all over the page in a random order and sometimes they are written correctly in a pretty straight line.
He has D-Y-L-A-N down, we are teaching him how to write his last name now. Thank goodness it is a short one, he lucked out there!

The most challenging thing for us is that he is left handed. We are both right handed. It is like I am learning to write all over again, but as a lefty. He uses the mouse with both hands but I think he is more comfortable with his left hand.

Yesterday, he created this fun piece of art at school. I've never seen him so proud of himself. He wanted to take it straight home to show his daddy. He didn't want to display on the walls at pre-school with the other kid's projects, and cried and cried until his teacher allowed him to take it home.
Fun stuff! We can't wait to see how he develops in another year.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is so darn cute about coloring in the noses!!! I'm extremely impressed with his letter tracing. Do you let Dylan spend time on your computer by himself? The closest ours (a little over 4 and a little over 3) get to our computers is while sometimes sitting on my lap to look at pictures or videos I've downloaded. Guess I'm too scared they'll break them! Ours will probably be behind their peers in all things computer. -- Fran

QGIRL said...

Fran, we open the page up on the computer and let him go at it. He does all the puzzles and games by himself now. Sometimes if the screen is loading or freezes up we have to help him out. He surfs from game to game by himself. The Sprout website & PBS Kids are his favs. Joe discovered Crayola has a cool site too. Just Google your kid's favorite characters and tons of sites will pop up.

dp said...

Honestly, you know your child best and if one hour seems okay, then it's okay. We let Sonny do a lot of activities on the computer. I figure it's better he figure out games and puzzles on a computer than watch cartoons (which he does too, but we are more strict with TV time).