Peepo!!!

Today was a day of firsts for Iona. First of all, we walked all the way to the Children's Centre and back, which was the first time she has done an entire walk on her own. Usually it takes me 10 minutes to walk, but this morning we got there in 20 minutes, while it took 40 to get home, mainly due to Iona wanting to pick up just about every pebble she saw and put them on people's walls! Amazingly, she spent most of the time in between walks running around at the Centre, and didn't even seem tired when we got home - it was me that was exhausted!

Today's session at the Children's Centre was Messy Play, but, as usual, Iona wasn't interested in the painting and other crafts indoors, preferring to run around outside. Towards the end of the session she was playing around by the plastic play house, when one of the other, slightly younger, children went inside. He looked out of the window, which had plastic shutters, and Iona closed them again. He reopened them and said "Peepo", so Iona replied by shutting them again, with a smile on her face. They carried on doing this for a while. It's the first time Iona has really played as an equal with another child, and was lovely to watch.

The "One" Show

For quite a few months now, Iona has been able to recognise supermarket names when she sees them, even in a different colour to their usual, e.g. "ASDA" in black on a yoghurt pot. However, this is always in its usual font, and within some sort of expected context, so I regard it more as logo recognition than actual reading. Tonight, though, she found a wildlife book on my shelf which said "do one thing". The font and design looked similar to that of the logo of "The One Show", but the context was completely different. However, she immediately said "one two" (what she calls "The One Show"), and when I asked her where she immediately pointed to the word "one"! To me, that is much closer to the skill of reading by the look-say approach, so I think I can finally say, with pride, that Iona has now read her first word!!!