More Literary Stylings of Katie Anne

Since learning how to write her name by herself a few weeks ago, Katie Anne's handwriting has really taken off.  She now writes her last name on everything!  This is her first attempt at writing Jones by herself from several weeks ago:

 Of course, all this writing knowledge hasn't been without its share of drama.  Sometimes, people leave off the "e" at the end of Katie Anne's name.  Lots of people do it.  It drives me crazy, but I don't mention it - it's just what happens when there are two very common spellings of your name.  Well, now that Katie Anne knows there's an "e" at the end of Anne, she's started adding it to her name when anyone - including her teachers - forget it.

 That in and of itself isn't a problem ... but when Katie Anne brought this paper home, she said, "I fixed my name on my paper, and then I got in trouble!"  When I got her to explain to me what had happened, apparently she's not too shy about pointing out the mistake to her teachers whenever they make it.  :)    

So, this lead to a long discussion about when it's okay to correct people, and when it's better to just keep it to yourself.  I think she's learned her lesson because today she told me that one of her teachers had been singing a song about left and right, but she'd gotten her left and right hands mixed up.  I asked Katie Anne if she'd said anything about it, but she said, "No, I didn't mention it."  Haha!

One other writing development is something that's really near and dear to my heart.  Anyone who knows me well knows I have a deep and abiding love of fonts, and I have a signature font that I claimed as my own years ago ... my beloved Tinkertoy!

Oh, Tinkertoy, you bring me so much joy!  I love to use Tinkertoy whenever I can - when typing or writing letters myself.  Even though I've never explicitly taught Katie Anne about adding the little dots to her letters, I guessed she's picked up on it.  And, bless her little heart, she tries her best to do Tinkertoy on her own!  When I caught her writing her name this way on some of her Valentine's cards, she said, "I'm writing like you, Mommy!"  That's a girl after my own heart!

Katie Anne the Writer!

This morning, Katie Anne woke up bright and early... as in 5:15 am early.  SJ woke up and was crying loud and proud, and he woke KA up.  So, this made for a challenging morning for us since Saunders and I hadn't even had our showers yet - and all four of us were wide awake!

To keep Katie Anne occupied while we got ready for work, she watched two episodes of Arthur, but then she got bored and wanted something else to do.  She was supposed to draw a picture of weather as her homework for school this week, so I suggested that she draw a picture of the weather to fill the time.  She was excited to do it, but she wanted to go in the living room and color.  So, she headed into the other room while we got ready for work.

About 20 minutes later, Katie Anne came back into the bathroom and announced, "Okay, I'm done with my picture!  I drew our house in the rain."  She showed me this picture:

Very nice drawing of our house ... happy sunshine ... one lonely cloud sprinkling rain on our house ... two neighbor houses ... and her name at the bottom!

I was shocked that she'd written her name - but I just assumed right away that she'd copied it from somewhere.  She's been good at copying letters for awhile, although we have not worked on writing any particular thing.  Whenever she's written something, I usually write the letters (sometimes one at a time, sometimes all at once), and she looks at the letters and then writes them on her own.  Other times, I write the letters with a pencil or pen, and then she traces with a marker or crayon.  Apart from copying her name on a few cards, we haven't really worked on writing her name.  In fact, the last time I even asked her to write her name was on September 13 (thank goodness for blogs to help you remember specifics!), and she just copied letters that I'd written with a pen...

At that point, Katie Anne couldn't even spell her name on her own. 

So, I asked her where she'd copied her name from, and she said, "I didn't copy it.  I just wrote it."  I started to think of any place that she could've copied it, but I couldn't think of anywhere where her name is written in all caps around the house.  When I write her name, I always write it with a capital to start and lowercase letters to follow (see picture above).  I asked her if she was serious, and I think she was kind of insulted that I asked!  She said, "I wrote it by myself.  I didn't copy it!  I know how to write my name all by myself."  I just couldn't believe that she'd done that in the living room all alone, with no one to help her come up with letters or show her how to form them!

 Saunders and I thought this was a huge accomplishment, and we praised her to the high heavens.  Katie Anne didn't think it was too important - she said, "I wrote my name yesterday, and no one cared."  She ran to get the paper where she'd written her name ... and then colored over most of it with a navy blue marker.  So, technically this is the second time she'd written it by herself.  :)

Then, I noticed that her name ended with "RITI".  I thought she might have been trying to write Jones, but she told me that wasn't what she had written - she said, "I wrote Katie Anne and then Rainy because the weather is rainy."  So, she sounded out the correct initial sound of R and the correct final sound of I - not too shabby for only three years old!

*I'm behind on blogging, so it's been about a week and a half since Katie Anne wrote her name on January 27.  (I've backdated this post so I'll remember the exact date she wrote her name later.)  Since these pictures were made, Katie Anne has written her name by herself on everything - school papers, coloring pages, three birthday cards, a baby shower card, and lots more!  She's an official name writer!

A Special Card for Ella

On Saturday morning, Katie Anne and I were getting ready for Ella Jolly's second birthday party.  (Poor Daddy had to work.)  Katie Anne picked out Ella's card, and she said that she wanted to write her own name on it and draw Ella a "special picture".  She wanted to use her markers.  We haven't done a lot of free drawing with markers recently - the last time I remember us just drawing on blank paper was when we were waiting for our flight back from Arizona.  So, I wasn't expecting too much of the artwork and didn't see the need to grab the camera.

Well, first Katie Anne said she wanted to write Ella's name on front of the envelope.  I told her that was fine, and I opened her purple marker for her to use.  She said, "What's Ella start wif?"  I told her "E" ... and she wrote a little backwards e!  I couldn't believe my eyes!  Then, she said, "What's next?"  I said "L" ... and she wrote an l!  She asked again what came next, and I told her another L, and she wrote another l on the paper.  Finally, I told her an A, and she said, "That looks like a little circle."  And she drew a lowercase a!

At this point, I should've ran for the camera, but I think I was in total shock that Katie Anne just wrote something that looked recognizably like "ella" all by herself.  So, I just sat there stunned as she proceeded to open Ella's card and draw a really good rendition of a face.  Purple circle for the head, two blue dots for the eyes (she asked me what color Ella's eyes were), a red "smile" (actually looks more like a frown, but the artist is two, people), and a swipe of blonde hair across the forehead! 

At this point, I knew two things.  One- this was by far the most sophisticated artwork Katie Anne had produced yet by far.  Two- no one would ever believe that she did this.  People would think I'd draw these things with my left hand and tried to say Katie Anne had done it.  That was when I jumped up and ran for the camera.  Here we go, folks ... documentation of artistic genius - and handwriting prowess - in the making!

Katie Anne chooses her next color ... see Ella's face in the background?

 Tongue out in concentration, she gives Ella a green dress.

 

Now, for Ella's arms and legs.

Next, she drew Erin.  Here she adds eyes to Erin's (slightly too big) purple face.

After giving Erin a red dress and smile, she added arms and legs to her body.

She was very disappointed that she did not have room to draw Jason.  She thought about trying to draw him really skinny on the side of the page, but then she decided to leave it "just girls" and add a sunshine.  Here, she draws a circle for the center of the sun.

Then, she adds "sparkles" -as she called them- coming out of the sun.

Here's the finished art piece!  This is her first drawing that really looks like people!

Of course, the artist is self-critical.  Her comments were, "I made Ella's dress too big" and "Erin's dress looks like a swing."  I still thought they were awesome!

Then, she said she wanted to write her name at the bottom of the card.  Mommy, ever the doubter, again had an Okay, sure moment.  We have never worked on writing letters.  However, she told me that she had been working on it at school.  I'm not sure if she has ... I've never seen any work come home where it looks like she's written her name, but who am I to question her?  Obviously, based on the following example, I do not know what I'm talking about. 

Again, she wanted the purple marker, and I gave it to her.  She proceeded to write - without me telling her anything - her own version of a K and a lowercase A. 

 

Then, she said, "What comes next?"  I told her a T.  I still could not believe that she could do this.  She said, "Can you show me how to make that?"  So, I grabbed an old envelope and wrote a lowercase t on the back.  She then imitated me on the card, repeating this process for each letter in her name!

Here's my envelope work ... I only did one N, but I told her there were two in her name, so she wrote two.

Working hard on writing her name.

So proud to show off the finished product!

I thought she couldn't do it, but I stand corrected!

She added a final touch to the front of the card ... a yellow birthday cake with two burning purple candles.

And then she pronounced her artwork complete!

I desperately wanted to keep the card, but she insisted on giving it to Ella.  So, I thought the pictures would be evidence enough of her work.  I can't wait to let her draw our family portrait so I can frame it!

Writing Her Own Name

Katie Anne has now started trying to write her own name on all her school work.  On almost all the papers that come home in her daily folder, we see where she's tried to write her name.

It always looks the same... three sets of zig-zaggy, triangular-looking lines of "letters".  She knows what each "word" says, and she'll point to them for you - Katie Anne Jones.  Sometimes Katie is very long and the other two are short or vice versa, but she always does three groups because she knows there are three words in her name.  (Wish some of my kindergartners knew that... sigh.  We're working on it.)  So far, the only letters she can really write consistently on her own are O's and V's, but she's trying to write Katie Anne Jones!

So cute!

Last week, her teacher Ms. Angela was absent for a few days (she's just finishing up her first trimester of her first pregnancy).  So, a teacher from the preschool class subbed for her.  When I picked Katie Anne up, the teacher said that, for lack of anything else she knew to do with two-year-olds, she went over their letters with them and asked them to name them.  She doesn't have kids of her own, has taught only four-year-olds for the past three years, and didn't realize that most of them wouldn't be able to do it.  But, she said that Katie Anne did awesome!  Most of the other kids knew 0-3 letters on sight, but Katie Anne knew almost all of them!  The teacher asked her to name them a second time so she could count how many she knew - she only missed four!  I'm surprised my head could fit through the door of the classroom - I was so proud!