Okay, I feel that Will is of the age that he should have this down pat, but...he still struggles with times of day, meal titles, todays, tomorrows, and the ever popular tomorrow-today (he has coined this phrase and I have no idea what it means to him...but some moment in time that I cannot define.)
This has become more problematic lately due to our beloved chocolate-filled advent calendars. Conversations between us go something like this:
W: Can we open a door on our calendars?
Me: No, remember? We did that this morning when we first woke up.
W: But I just woke up. (Clarification: came down from quiet time. There was no sleeping involved and it was 3pm)
Me: No, I mean when we wake up in the morning - like, when we still have pajamas on.
LATER THAT EVENING JUST BEFORE BED:
W: Hey, we have pajamas on. Can we open a door on our calendar?
Me: No. It has to be morning. Tomorrow morning we will.
W: You mean tomorrow-today?
Me: No. Not really. I mean tomorrow tomorrow!
W: I don't know what you're talking about.
Me: Well, let's go to bed and you'll see after you wake up.
Can you feel my frustration? And just the other night when we all sat at dinner and it was already dark out, Will states that he loves this breakfast. Really? Have we EVER called this meal breakfast?
So, today I decided maybe it just needs a little work and I made this little "puzzle" for him to understand how a "today" goes and that the next day is "tomorrow."
No comments on the artwork, please. It kind of worked in that it helped him to talk through it with me. But I am now taking suggestions for other effective ways to teach this concept! :)
8 comments:
I'm going to try to think of some helpful suggestions...but right now, I'm laughing too hard. Not at your drawings, just at the whole situation. Because I can totally understand how frustrating this must be!
Bennett uses "tomorrow tomorrow" for two days from now and "yesterday yesterday" for two days ago...maybe you can introduce that freaky language to him to clear up days? Also, do you have a regular calendar that you can put an x through the day when it's done?
I'll keep thinking...
nicole's just being nice...i'm laughing at your drawings. (j/k - it's sooooo much better than i could do).
we have the same problems at our house. i think the puzzle is a great idea.
Okay, I'm going to pull out my child development here: it's not age appropriate until age 6 to truly comprehend and use these temporal concepts. It's hard to understand "tomorrow" if he doesn't yet know the days of the week (in kindergarten this is taught during calendar - hence reseach shows age 6 is when this skill is more solid). Maybe do your own home "calendar" time. He keeps hearing "tomorrow" but to him it's arbitrary and it probably feels like "tomorrow" never gets here.......But love your visual schedule - and it's just hard that tomorrow becomes today and then there's a new "tomorrow" - make sense?
MmmmMmMmmm . . . What are those yummy brown triangles you are serving for lunch? They look Daaaa-licious !!!!
How about using the 1 more sleep, 2 more sleeps, etc. approach? Every time there's a "sleep" involved, a tomorrow comes...and it's today!! Quiet time excluded, of course, just in case he happens to nod off!! I would love to know what the conception of tomorrow-today actually is in his little head?? They take everything you say so literally and I can usually decipher what they say using that approach. He's got me on this one!
I don't think there is any way better than your way. Mom gets an A+!!
p.s. Jamie's, like, all smart and junk. She uses words like "arbitrary" and "temporal". Whoa, dude. Slow up the brain train...
I think your puzzle is a great, concrete idea to get a very abstract concept across!!
I am laughing too...at the conversations of course.;) I have very similar ones w/ Caleb and hear things like "did we do this on the yesterday before Sunday?" Umm...on the WHAT?? I like your puzzle idea. I also try to use the days of the week with him more when speaking "tomorrow, Thursday, we have a birthday party to go to." and I used to point out the time of day more too ...like "the sun is going down, it's nighttime now".
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