Pineapple!

One of Jack's favorite books is Richard Scarry's Biggest Word Book Ever!. Jack loves to open this very large book, sit in the middle of it, and point to some of his favorite things like cars, buses, tractors, bicycles, motorcycles, and digger trucks. This morning Jack surprised me by bypassing everything with wheels (oh my!). Instead, he went straight to the fruit page in his book. Jack was very persistent and kept pointing over and over again to something I have never seen him point to before. I looked closely and realized that Jack was pointing to a very tiny picture of pineapple. What amazed me about this is that Jack has been eating pineapple with his breakfast every morning this week. Jack, Grace, and I bought a pineapple last week at the grocery store. Jack loved watching me cut the pineapple and he has really been enjoying eating it too! The experience of shopping for the pineapple, feeling it with his fingers, watching me prepare it, tasting it, and talking about the entire experience each morning over breakfast the past several days must have really stayed with Jack. What an amazing little man Jack was this morning (and always!) to get his book on his own, open it and turn the very large pages until he found the teeny tiny picture of the pineapple to show me. Involving children, making them active participants, and using language to talk about experiences is such an incredibly powerful learning tool. Oh how I love watching language and communication develop in my sweet boy!