My 5 year-old son Adib has outgrown his massive bus obsession (from collecting toys to surfing bus-related websites to drawing buses to riding them – as often as he can regardless whether we needed to or not – to reading bus-stop signs) and is really into bugs nowadays. Just pictures of them for now that is. We’ve bought him a few educational books on the creepy crawlies and his current favourite is “Pocket Spotters Insects”. It’s quite small and thin enough for him to bring around easily and I’m pleased to see its pages are well-worn from countless perusing. Before now, he’s been mainly looking at the pictures, reading the bug names aloud and assigning insect identities to his brothers and assorted family members (e.g. today he’s a seed bug, and his younger brothers Amil and Atif are a praying mantis and an ant respectively). Tonight, I saw him go a bit further and actually start drawing a few of them using images in the book as reference. I believe he gets additional encouragement to sketch from one of his presently favourite cartoons, ChalkZone. And I must say I’m pleased as Punch. Usually if given a piece of paper and a pencil, he’ll write down words and construct simple sentences. Now maybe he’ll grow to love drawing as much as I do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than happy with him loving words too!
Check out that smile on his face!
