Miss Oh Waily has always been in love with numbers, with the odd little bit of interest in letters thrown in just for variation.  I have been waiting patiently for her to show her sensitive period for reading and interest in all things writing.  Would she oblige me? No, not really.

So, in true lack of patience style, I have begun to work up more opportunities to stimulate her interest in letters.  We have had the sandpaper letters for some time now, and have had a variety of applications for the iPad for about the same amount of time. These have been used quite happily.  We have a moveable alphabet app for the iPad, but I wanted something tactile too.  However, I didn’t want to pay over NZ$ 100 for a nice wooden set of type just on the off chance that it wouldn’t be used at all.  Instead I chose to visit Montessori Print Shop and pay for a downloadable version that included lesson instructions.

I know I could have created a simple set for myself, or used a free one from the internet, but seriously at the price charged by MPS it would have taken me more time and effort than this modest outlay to gain a variety of alphabet colour options and find, then format, all of the picture images included.

The hardest part of putting all of this together was finding a box for storage.  In the end I had to go with a box in which the letters sit at a slant rather than lie down in.  Other than that one hitch, the semi-homemade moveable type is now available for use.  Here is what it looks like:

And here are some of Miss Oh’s efforts with the pictures and alphabet.  Can you tell that she likes the capital letters?

And what would our photographs be like if some of the soft animals didn’t get in on the act?

We started with the “c m a t” combinations and extended it to include all of the simple three letter “at” words.  Miss Oh seemed happy to do this, but I think is still reserved about her letters enough that it will be done with my encouragement and participation for a little while longer.

So long as it is fun and not a chore for her then we will keep it up.