Alphabet playlist!

I made a playlist for our alphabet videos!  I love showing them to the Dude, and now we can watch them all without me fiddling with the computer in between each one.  You can also go here for the playlist.

Looking back, it seems I haven't explained WHY I've been making the alphabet music videos with WonderGirl.  So here goes:

WonderGirl's learning style is verbal/aural.  She hears something once, she has it memorized and analyzes it in her head like a computer.  Case in point:  this morning she showed me a pebble she'd found and wanted to find out what kind of rock it was.  We checked online and found it was sandstone, of the sedimentary family.  On the way to school she was talking about how excited she was to show it to her teacher and suddenly exclaimed - "We're DRIVING on sedimentary rock, aren't we?!"  She's so easy to teach that I simply can't take credit for it.

The Dude on the other hand, is incredibly kinesthetic.  He feels everything, gets into everything, analyzes everything and learns best when dancing is involved.  When we were in Colorado last month, he spent a week trying to figure out how to get the handle off of one of my mom's cabinets.  It took him that entire week, but at the end, he could unscrew it in a matter of seconds (not an easy feat, mind you).  I'm pretty sure he's going to be a violinist and an engineer, like his awesome violin-playing, kinesthetic learning, engineer uncle.

WG's learning style is easy for me to teach to - but I have no experience with kinesthetic learning.  He's 20 months, and by this age WG had been able to identify every letter in the alphabet for at least 5 months, simply because Sesame Street told her so (okay, I had a little to do with it, but for the most part she taught herself).  So how can I teach them to the Dude?  He adores Dr. Seuss' ABC book (as did WG) and we read it constantly, but I know just seeing and hearing me read isn't enough.  He responds to music strongly, so I put WonderGirl's dramatic flair to the test to start writing songs that would help him learn the letters.

He loves - LOVES to watch his sister up on the screen and dance along to her.  We sing them in the car and he sings the melody back to me.  We sing them while playing on the floor and I move different parts of his body to the beat.  I've even been sewing stuffed letters for him to play with and hold while we sing the song that goes with that letter.

Recycled letters - there's an Easter dress, some pajamas and some marching band shorts there!

We're getting some results every day, too.  A few weeks ago, he was running around a store with a friend of mine and went up to a large sign, pointed to a letter E and shouted "E!!!"  So something is sinking in!  Will he be reading Shakespeare by his 3rd birthday?  Of course not, but I'm learning how he learns, and WG is having a blast with her mild internet fame.  If you and your child enjoy them as well, that's just icing on the cake :)  Do you have a kinesthetic learner?  I'd love to hear tips if you have them!