Learning to Industrial Design with my 5yo and singing ‘Borns’ to my newborn!

I am the Dad of two wonderful little ones. My oldest daughter, Liesi, is 5 years old, and I have a newborn girl, Iris. These two teach me so much about life and provide constant inspiration. I’m going to write about what I’m learning this week.

Industrial Design: Letters with Liesi

Baby Iris was born three days ago. This means hard transition to Liesi who is five and a quarter. I’m working to inspire her to read as something unique and as special attention only she can have right now. Tonight, we talked about making toys. Told her she has to work on reading, writing, and drawing for the first step. I bought a Vtech Write and Learn Touch Tablet for her to work on her letters and sounds. If you press the letter twice it tells you the sound.

I’ve been writing two or three letter words on her LCD writing tablet and having her look up the sounds on her VTech. I write soft or hard signs over the vowels and that helps her a lot. We just learned all the vowels last week. The LCD tablet will be a good tool for drawing, practice writing the Alphabet, and learning to read the words I write. I told her she will get a computer when she learns to read and write, then she will learn to type. I’m personally motivated to learn Industrial Design, she wants to make a toy, I want to set a goal to accomplish this in the next three years.

In the meantime learning letters is becoming fun work. There is a really good phonics show that comes from the UK, ‘Alphablocks’! There are several free episodes featured on YouTube.

Singing and Dancing with Iris

When Iris is upset, I have found that singing to her will calm her down. First time Borns was magic, I made momma a love and Borns playlist prebirth. These songs quiet Iris fast! She likes Borns, Andy Grammer, and Neil Horan! James Arthur will be my next attempt. I’m so glad singing works!

She also likes when I ‘lean and rock with it’. I think she has some ‘cookin’ dance moves. ‘Eating is money’ is her favorite but she shakes some ‘seasonings’ and mixes in ‘whiping’ too. I’m not teaching her ‘knife’ She is to young to chop with knives!

Parenting, being a husband, and working to support family is a full time effort. Living in a day of age where technology can be utilized to make learning so fun is such a gift. Liesi has some big dreams! I am going to work on guiding that creative effort, cultivating it, and accomplishing some big feats for both of us!