My Little Planner

My girl is a planner.  She has started making pictures as her 'plans' for how she wants you to make things.  She is certain that her parents can make whatever it is she has drawn out.  She has made plans and instructions for clothes she wants me to make for her.  She included the colors and designs on fabric choices as well:

After seeing a cool play set at Costco, she decided her Daddy could make one for her.  She came home and drew up the plans.  She included all the things she would want, including a slide, swing, sand box, and water table.  When Daddy told her it might be too much to make, she drew another picture that was a little scaled down (there was no water table).

She also wants to be a helper for Daddy.  She loves that he builds houses, and decided he needed some plans.  She drew several pictures of houses, and had me staple them together to make a book so Daddy would know what kinds of houses to build.  She even told me she hadn't colored the insides of the houses, so he could choose the colors himself.  The houses included a rainbow house, kitty house, doll house, slide house, balloon house, ice cream cone house, and many more.  After she gave it to him, she asked him which house he was working on.  When he told her he wanted to do the rainbow house, she asked when she could come see it.

She has also made a lot of books lately, some with ideas for things she would like to do, like parts of a party, or sometimes with letters she knows and numbers and shapes.  Sometimes she draws the pictures for a story and has some help from Mama to write captions, and sometimes she writes the captions herself.  I love seeing her writing.  She has been really brave about sounding things out and trying to spell them phonetically.  At first it was a bit hard to figure out what the words actually were, but we are starting to get better at reading them.  And she has been learning to leave spaces between words, which really helps out.

She also really loves to write notes.  She writes notes for her friends, family, and teachers.  She writes notes to welcome Daddy home from work.  She writes notes to tell me she loves me.  She writes notes to say thank you.  She puts her notes in envelopes. writes the names on the front, and then puts a sticker in the corner for a stamp.  She goes through a LOT of envelopes, and since most of the notes are invitations to pretend parties, they don't get mailed, but she certainly has a lot of fun writing them!  We got a huge stack of paper on craigslist and it has made it possible for her to practice writing, drawing, cutting, pasting, and use LOTS of paper, without my feeling like it is all the printer paper getting used up.  

She is a great girl and we love to see how grown up she is getting.  Even if we as the parents can't always do all the things she has planned, it is fun to see all the creative things she comes up with plans for!