Monday, August 3, 2009


Liana got a new puzzle last weekend. She loves puzzles, and can put together a 24 piece puzzle with a little help the first time or second time, and then she can put it together by herself. I am awed by her visual and spatial orientation. Certainly not one of my skills, but for her, it is second nature.

In any case, the puzzle had pictures of farm animals. We put the puzzle together the first time, and talked about the animals. There is a cow, a sheep, a chicken, a duck, a pig. They all live on farms.

Later, we were talking about the puzzle. Was there an elephant in the puzzle? No! Elephants live on the savannah! Was there a dolphin? No! Dolphins live in the ocean! Was there a monkey? No! Monkeys live in the rainforests or the jungles! Was there a cow? Sure! There was a cow! Cows live on farms!

That was fun for a while, and gave us lots of content for a nice discussion.

Later, Liana was playing with the puzzle by herself, and I was sitting at my computer. Liana finished the puzzle herself, and called me over to admire her work. She was looking at the puzzle, and something clicked. She got all excited, and told me to “Stay right here, ok? Don’t go away. Stay right here!”

She disappeared into her room for a few minutes, and then reappeared with a book. It was a “baby” touch and feel board book, with pictures of baby animals and their names and they had fur or feathers or scales to touch. I had not pulled that book off her bookshelf in 8 or 10 months. Maybe even a year. It was a book she had, in my mind, outgrown.

She had already flipped through the book, and had opened to the farm animal page.

Look Mommy!!!!! Farm animals!!!! See???? A cow! A sheep! A goat! A baby chick! See????

We looked at the animals in the book, and then compared them to the animals in the puzzle. We then turned at looked at the other pages in the book, and there were some of the same categories that we had been talking about during our discussion. Ocean animals. Jungle animals. Pets. Polar animals.

Liana is a city girl. She has never been to a farm. The only goats and sheep and cows she has ever seen are in the petting zoo. But something in her head went click, and she really understood. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she had filed away the information in that book, and when she thought about the puzzle, she made the connection from so long ago, and went to find the relevant page!

I love being a mom. Watching Liana learn about the world, and sharing her discoveries is so amazing.