Physicalkid

[moominmolly]

Natalie's always been a shockingly physical kid. As a baby, she wanted to be swaddled to sleep much longer than the other kids. She loves snuggles, and still would sleep on top of me like a mattress if I let her. She points and gestures, and tells stories with her body in a way I don't often see. She loves running and climbing and biking and

Comments

[rednikki]

Do you mind if I point Mike at this? I wasn't this kind of kid but, since he first took apart a washing machine at the age of 4, I suspect he might be.

[rednikki]

He is already saying "Teach safety! Safety is key!" Since she is likely to build things and take them apart, stuff like "Don't take apart the toaster when it is plugged in!" is important

[moominmolly]

Model rockets omg. Also tools are a great idea. She loves helping build things.

Thank you! :)

[randomdreams]

Estes model rockets are great. Get her used to the idea that they're gonna get lost: fly into the sky and disappear forever. They have a whole range, marked by difficulty of building, and ones and twos should be pretty excellent for her.

There are a lot of neat nearly impossible to destroy radio control planes out there, that are basically a huge piece of foamcore board with a propeller on it.

I'm totally onboard with the idea of making sure she knows what is and isn't okay to take apart. See if you can find some old cameras and let her take those apart.

[harimad]

Another good option is KidWood. It's dense styrofoamy stuff, extruded in woodworking shapes (planks, plinths, cylinders, etc), with safe-but-usable plastic tools such as saws, hammers, bolts, angled cutters (dunno real name, sorry). It's so safe that we let our 5 yo use it without supervision. It's very unmessy too: no sawdust. We found it to be an excellent introduction to wood, at low cost and low supervision requirements. Our artistic child really goes to town with it.

[moominmolly]

Wow! Awesome! Thanks for the rec!!